Conjugate Pairs
by Zors
Summary: AH: Edward gets arrested and meets Girl, who he will quickly learn is his conjugate pair. You can't have one without the other. But certain obstacles stand in their way, and Girl will need Edward's help in understanding the concept of the conjugate pair.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** Hello all. For those who read POAG, Conjugate Pairs does not mean that I'm going to slack off and abandon it. No, on the contrary, now that this is out of my head I'm going to go finish off the next chapter of POAG. I write things like this all the time when I have trouble writing other things. Today, I felt generous and decided to share.

* * *

**Conjugate Pairs**

**Chapter 1**

Those beautiful blue flashing lights not too far in the distance were quite a surprise, considering I didn't think anybody passed by this place on a Sunday. My mind was hazy, so instead of giving in to that instinctual panic that told me to run, I sat back against the log that I had only recently been acquainted with and waited for the son of a bitch to show up.

I closed my eyes as the front hood pulled close, the tires crunching into the gravel a yard or so in front of me. The thud of the car door opening and then closing was followed by his boots kicking rocks my way as he came closer, and I smiled in preparation.

"Hello, Edward. What's this we got here?" he said.

There were numerous things in front of me. "I think you can see for yourself," I replied, opening my eyes. He was looking a little hazy too, but I didn't mind. His damn uniform meant that he always looked the same, so I closed my eyes again and sank further against my trusty log.

"You know what I'm going to say, Edward. Stand up."

"Aw, come on, Charlie," I whined. "Why don't you sit down instead and join me for once?"

"Stand up, Cullen."

I opened my eyes and frowned at him, disappointed that he used that name because he knew better. "We've gone over this, _Charles_. It's Masen. The name is Masen."

He played with the cuffs at his side as he spoke, drawing my attention to them. "I don't ever hear you calling me Chief, son. So stand up, let's go. You know the routine."

"Charlie," I began thoughtfully, "you're like my best friend. You know that? My best god damn fucking friend. You're always looking out for me."

He shook his head, because the asshole never really had the patience for my brand of humor. "Edward Cullen, you are under arrest for illegal possession of alcohol and lighting a fire without a permit while trespassing on public property. You have the right to remain silent—"

"Aw, come on, come on!" I complained as I squinted at him, my voice rising in pitch. "Would you just shut the fuck up already? I've only heard you say that eighty damn million times. I'm standing up now, okay?"

Charlie stepped forward, impatient for me to hobble to my feet as he grabbed my upper arm and yanked me until I was much more vertical than I wanted to be in my state.

"Ow, Charlie," I grumbled. "That really hurt."

He ignored me, like he usually did when he cuffed me, and in the most unkind way possible, wrenched my arms behind my back. I bit my lip to keep the complaints behind it, and only struggled against him out of reflex for the unnatural way I was forced to keep my arms.

The big red fire engine pulled up then, its tires grinding heavily into the ground beneath them. Two of the men inside jumped out and walked over to where Charlie and I were doing our same old song and dance.

"Hey boys!" I called to them. They scowled and ignored me as they walked up to Charlie and briefly discussed 'the situation'. _Big fucking surprise_. The older one barked at the younger fireman to pick up my booze and Goldfish, and I was only pissed that I didn't get to eat more of my snack before they arrived. Though, they did break my heart a little when they put out my fire. It was pretty large considering the type of twigs and shit with which I had put it together. I had been proud of it.

Charlie turned back to me, asking more questions. Those small movements he used to move his mouth to speak wouldn't stop, and I lost my focus. He didn't have the patience to joke around about us being the good buddies that we never will be, and I didn't have the patience to listen to the deep rumble of his voice that was meant to intimidate me. It was bullshit. So when I didn't respond to his questions, statements, whatever—which, judging from the way nothing in his expression changed, didn't really surprise him—he pushed me forward and opened the back door of his butt ugly excuse for a squad car, and tossed me in.

Well, that's never really the truth. Charlie, good soul that he is, always makes sure I don't accidently bump my head on the frame after he manhandles me onto the plastic seat in the back.

"Ow," I grumbled again, shifting so that I was leaning sideways on the seat. My mind swam and I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the door opposite the one I was pushed through. "Police brutality," I mumbled, my eyes falling shut of their own accord this time. "You always think the bastards on _Cops_ are being overdramatic and deserve it. . . until it happens to you."

I heard Charlie settle into the driver's seat while I rambled on. He didn't say anything about it. My threats of police brutality were never very intimidating to his ears.

The plastic was god damn uncomfortable as Charlie began to drive. He hit a bump and my head banged lightly against the window. I shifted. I made little whiny noises. I shifted some more. He hit another bump, probably on purpose. I huffed. I tried to scratch an itch I didn't have. I sighed.

Nothing pissed him off. Nothing got him to call back for me to cut it out.

I forced my eyes open and glared at the back of his head, which I could only see a very small portion of considering I was slumped directly behind him.

"So, who called me in?" I asked. "Who in the hell was around to call me in, Charlie? Or do you just have some sort of special radar for me?"

He was silent. I rolled my eyes, and while I did, a movement on the passenger's side stopped their turning.

There was a friggin' girl sitting there. She wasn't looking at me. I could only see her brown hair covering the side of her face.

_Who the hell was that? _"Who the hell are you?"

That got Charlie's attention. His voice was gruff as he answered, "Cut it out, Cullen."

"Masen,_ Charles_. Masen," I quickly reminded him, before I moved on to the more important stuff. "Who the fuck is that? And _why_ does she get to sit in the front seat?"

"That's enough, Edward," he reprimanded, and this time the tone of his voice was able to convince me to shut the hell up.

I watched her shoulders slump forward a little as she turned away from me more, looking out her window. I could see the barest shadow of her reflection in the glass, which was made even stronger whenever we drove past a group of particularly dark green trees. From what I could make out, her eyebrows were all scrunched together and her lips were drawn tight. She was thinking pretty friggin' seriously about _something_.

"Hello," I said to her back. "My name is Edward Masen. I didn't have the chance to introduce myself, _mostly 'cause I didn't even know you were in the car_—"

"_Edward_," Charlie growled warningly.

"But it's a pleasure to meet your back," I finished. I attempted to sit up straighter in case she turned around (it was the polite thing to do, really, to be presentable), but when she didn't I gave up.

"I'm calling Esme this time," Charlie said, and I groaned, thoroughly distracted.

"Why do you have to go and do that?" I kicked at the wall that protected the back of his seat. "She doesn't. . . she doesn't fucking need you calling her up and ruining her day. Leave her to her gardening and shit."

"Too late. You've pushed enough of my buttons today."

He took a sharp turn and I squished into the window more. _Bitch_.

"Fine," I muttered, but continued to swear a blue streak under my breath when the guilt hit and I thought of how I was going to ruin Esme's day. She was so damn nice. You don't ruin a nice person's day. At least, not a nice person like her. Her god damn husband, on the other hand, Cunt Ass Carlisle, was a fucking pretentious prick and I loved to interrupt his fucking work. I had no problem with Charlie calling _him_.

I was bitterly silent for the rest of the ride to the station. There was an uncomfortable pressure building behind my eyes and my head was starting to throb. All of it nearly made me think that maybe I had had too much to drink for a Sunday afternoon. But then I remembered the warmth in my stomach and burn in my throat when I started and changed my mind.

I stared at the girl's back the rest of the way. She didn't move a damn muscle, and I couldn't help but think that that was uncomfortable. And who was she anyway? What made her so god damn special that she got to sit in the front seat? Shit, if I got to sit in the front instead of on the hard plastic in the back, then I would willingly throw my wrists together every time Charlie and I got together. Due to the manner in which Charlie was growling at me earlier, I didn't want to risk my ass talking to her again.

But I was belligerent. What the fuck could he do to me anyway?

"Hey," I said, as if I could nudge her shoulder with the word. "Hey, girl. You're not being taken down to party with me and the rest of the boys down at the station, right?"

I saw Charlie's glare trying to shoot me through the rearview mirror and ignored it. Tit for tat. He ignores me, I ignore him.

I chuckled darkly to myself then. "Or have you been a naughty girl?" I asked. Her back stiffened and Charlie sped into a spot at the station. Bastard slammed on the brakes a little too harshly for my liking, and my face was almost introduced to the partition that separated me from my favorite police officer.

"Hey, watch it!" I warned. "What's with the lead foot today, buddy?"

"Stay in the car. Just for a moment," Charlie said quietly to the girl. Without looking in either of our directions, she nodded her head, and then Charlie stepped out and manhandled me inside.

"You could be gentler, you know," I told him. "You look like you could be a gentle soul if you tried."

He ignored me.

"Hey Tommy," he said to my other good friend, Officer Tommy Parks, behind the counter at the entrance. "Got Cullen here, in for the usual. I'm just going to throw him in a holding cell while I call Esme."

Tommy nodded passively, but before he could open his mouth to make some smart ass comment, I just had to interrupt.

"Jesus Christ, Charles. I still remember my damn father, okay? _The name is Masen._ EDWARD MASEN."

Good old Charlie was unaffected by the raised volume of my voice, and gave me his classic withering stare. "You're being adopted by the Cullens, correct?"

I nodded. He began dragging me off to what I like to consider the Presidential suite of prison cells; my home away from home whenever I came to visit the station.

"And I heard Esme talking about you agreeing to changing your name in the grocery store the other day."

I stayed silent.

"Maybe it's time you get used to your new name," he suggested.

"Fuck you," I spat. "It's still Masen. Maybe I was lying to the bitch." I cringed internally at the name calling, because I didn't really mean it, but it helped the attitude I was going for. "All right? Masen, Charles. M-A-S-E—"

My spelling of my last name was cut off when Charlie pushed me inside the holding cell and I tripped. Without having my arms for balance, I fell to my side with a semi-dramatic shout of surprise. I always like to think I'm still really masculine when something like that happens, even when the pitch of my voice rises unnaturally like it just did.

I decided to stay on the floor. No use in getting up when Charlie would come in later and do that for me. My arm was uncomfortably pinned under my side, so I rolled onto my stomach and lay my cheek against the floor. I sighed pitifully. I had had better days.

Just like all my other hospitable stays, I patiently waited for Charlie to come tell me Esme was coming to get me. Today the whole wait just happened to feel a hell of a lot longer than the other times. I was getting cold on the floor, but obstinately waited for Charlie to do all the heavy lifting for me when it was time to go. And maybe Esme would see how I was being treated and fucking do something about Charlie's behavior. I could endure anything if I thought that in the long run it would somehow come around and bite Charlie in the ass.

While I was waiting, I heard shoes scuffling along the corridor that led to my suite. I spun around on my tummy (yes, _tummy_, because that's what I felt like calling it) so that I could see Charlie approach.

But it wasn't Charlie coming to pick me up. It was that frigid girl again. She slowed stepped forward, not bothering to actually pick up her feet as she walked, so they continued to make a shuffling sound that I could kind of hear through the ear that I had against the floor.

I waited for her to say something first, but nothing came out of her mouth. It sort of strained my eyes to look up at her sideways for very long, so I wasn't really able to grasp what kind of expression she had on her face. I did know from my few glances that she was pretty little thing.

"Well hello," I greeted when I realized she really wasn't going to say anything. "I see you've discovered my palace. You can come in if you'd like. We can finally get to know each other. Charlie was being rude in the car—not introducing us and all. Maybe you could help me off the floor?"

I didn't mean to ask that last question, but I figured if pitying her to come in would work then it was worth Charlie not doing it. Idiot would probably bruise me with his fat fingers if he tried.

Girl _still_ didn't say anything. I began wondering if I was that much of a zoo display that she was worried if she spoke she'd disturb the animal. Or maybe. . .

"I know what you're thinking," I said, well, knowingly. I began nodding sagely, but stopped when I realized that I was effectively just rubbing my face into the dirt and concrete. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I understand. You're in stunned silence right now. You had no idea they had rooms this nice here. I was quiet in the presence of the beauty of this place the first time I saw it too. You'll get used to it eventually."

I heard laughter and quickly glanced up at her to see her eyes smiling at me while she chuckled. Not _with_ me, mind you. _At _me.

So what I was a drunken mess on the grungy cell floor, she found me funny. It was all good. Chicks go for guys with a sense of humor.

"Your mom's on her way," she said softly.

I sighed, for this was a common mistake strangers made. "She's not my mom," I informed Girl, feeling my good mood deflate with the change of subject. "Again, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, '_Holy hell Masen, but you're so hot, and she's so hot, you had to have come from her._' Alas, that is not the case, Girl. Esme Cullen, although arguably the most motherly-like almost mother on the planet, did not actually birth me."

"Sorry," she said meekly.

"S'okay," I told her sincerely. "I think I wish she was my mom too. But unfortunately, that was some other woman's job."

I sighed again and rolled onto my back. "But she's almost here, you say?"

"Yup," Girl said. "Well, uh, Chief Swan just wanted me to let you know."

She ducked away quickly. I barely registered that she was leaving before I shouted out my goodbye after her, my voice ringing down the hall. We still weren't properly introduced, which was a shame. But I'd survive.

I hummed to myself while I waited, suddenly eager to hear the delicate tap of Esme's heel draw near so that I could start apologizing for ruining her Sunday. I had thought that Girl said she was almost at the station, so I couldn't help but get a little impatient when she didn't show up in the next two seconds.

Finally, after many unmeasured moments of waiting, I heard the rumble of Charlie's voice down the hall as he greeted Esme, whose voice was so kind and gentle I couldn't hear it from where I lay. However, seconds later, it wasn't the tap of Esme's shoe I heard coming down the hall. The sound was more like a clap.

I groaned, recognizing it immediately.

Now completely miserable, I turned my head to the side as_ his_ shiny black shoes came into view.

_Cunt Ass Carlisle._


	2. Chapter 2

**Conjugate Pairs**

**Chapter 2**

The usual swarm of papers on my desk were more frustrating than they usually were. I would turn to one stack only to realize that the form I was looking for was in another, but all my moving around to get to that first stack meant that I had yet more mountains of paper to move.

Simple paper—simple cut down and processed trees—was not what was really causing my exacerbation. Rather, it was the drilling I could hear from the new house being built down the road, the heat in the room making the back of my neck itch, and the fact that I was so tired and had such a powerful headache that I didn't even want to lift my arms.

Plus, Edward was missing. Again. I tried not to let myself think about it too much, because I didn't know if I would be able to keep myself calm if I did.

I heard Esme's voice drift up to me from the lower level of the house as she sang. She was painting the dining room red. She said it was color psychology—it would make people want to eat when they were in there. I let her funny warbling calm me down as I found the energy to lift yet another stack of paper, and finally got to finishing my paperwork.

The phone rang, loud and shrill from somewhere behind a pile of files.

My hand jerked and I sent a stack of paper to the floor. If it was disorganized and confusing before, it was impossible now. I bit my tongue, but still let out a murmured "Fuck."

The phone didn't ring for long. I heard Esme say a pleasant greeting into the receiver she picked up downstairs.

And then it was quiet. Too quiet. Even the drilling had stopped. I pricked my ears towards my wife's direction, straining to hear anything.

After a moment, there were footsteps. They were hurried, slamming into the steps as Esme ran up them. I only had to wait a moment more before she opened my office door, looking utterly defeated as she kept listening to whoever was on the phone.

Although, I had a pretty good guess as to who it might be.

"Yes, thank you," Esme sighed. "I'll send Carlisle to get him this time. No, I'm sure. Goodbye."

She hung up and threw the handset down on the couch along the side wall before coming to sit on the corner of the desk in front of me.

"One guess," she said, raising her eyebrows.

"Edward."

"You got it. Charlie found him down by Newton's, said they weren't pressing charges but that we should go get him as soon as possible."

I nodded. "And you want me to get him?"

"Yes," she sighed again. "Have you looked at my clothes? I don't want to change, and I don't think I would have the time to clean up my brush and cover the paint."

As suggested, I looked at her clothes, her rumpled, paint-splattered, baggy clothes. No, she wouldn't want to go out like that, even if it was for Edward.

"Alright," I agreed easily, frowning down at the scattered documents on the floor. "It might do me some good to get away from here anyway."

"Thank you," she breathed, and leaned over to give me a quick kiss on the lips. She popped up way too soon for my liking, and hurried back down to her painting.

* * *

The Forks Police Station was this small looking brick building across from the library in town. I had never really ever had any personal need to enter it before, but in the last three months I had become a regular visitor.

Today, I was noticing a pattern. The bell always knocked twice against the door as it closed. Tom always stuck his head up from behind the tall desk he sat at, but as soon as he saw me, he would turn and press the buzzer to Charlie's office. Charlie always came out immediately, rubbing his nose before taking one long breath, a breath that he would always release in one long huff, before telling me the facts.

And so today, of course, was no exception.

"He was called in by Mrs. Stanley," Charlie said after his exhale. "He was out in the back lot of Newton's; he had the usual booze and Gold Fish around him, but this time he started a fire. We got to him before it got out of control, and nothing was damaged this time. His language was a little more foul than usual, even towards my daughter. I'm not pressing charges this time."

My head, which had settled into my palm while he spoke, lifted. "Your daughter? I heard about her coming."

The chief nodded, smiling slightly. "Yeah, I picked her up earlier. I wasn't expecting her until next month, but she wanted to come sooner."

He shrugged, and I couldn't help but smile for him. "Well that's great, Charlie. I can't wait to meet her." Then I remembered the reason why he brought up his daughter in the first place. "I'm sorry about Edward. I'll talk to him."

"Nah, don't worry about it this time. It didn't bother her. Right, Bella?"

He turned and revealed a small brunette drowning in a large sweatshirt that I hadn't realized had come out of his office.

"No, he didn't bother me," she said softly, smirking.

"Well, I'm still sorry this was how you first met him," I apologized. She shook her head as she bit her lip and looked down at her toes, and it struck me then that she seemed very shy.

I heaved a sigh and looked back at Charlie. "Thanks though, Charlie, for not pressing charges this time. I'll go get him out of your hair now."

"See you around, Carlisle," he replied. He stepped forward and handed me a small set of keys and winked at me, and then he and his daughter drifted back off to his office.

I walked down the hall to the cell where Charlie usually put Edward, my shoes echoing rather loudly as I fingered the keys to Edward's cuffs. Even though I had done this more times than I wanted to think about at the moment, I realized just what a blessing it was that Esme and I moved to a small town where the police chief would let off your nearly adopted son of some pretty serious charges for a seventeen-year-old.

I might have even sent up a little prayer to whoever when I looked down at Edward lying on his back, his arms uncomfortably trapped underneath him, dirt smudged on his left cheek, eyes bleary.

He had just groaned at me. This was his custom reaction to my presence whenever he was drunk. "Not you," he moaned, turning his head away. "Not you."

"Well who else were you expecting?"

"Esme. Charlie said he was going to get Esme to come get me this time. Geez," he exhaled, turning his head to face me now, "what a lousy friend, huh?"

He smirked, and then when I didn't respond his eyes crinkled and he burst out into laughter.

"Come on, Edward," I urged, opening the gate to his cell. I stood at his side as his face continued to scrunch up. When he began to gurgle his laughter I spoke again. "Come on, get up off the floor."

"Jes—" he laughed. "Jesus—Christ," he laughed some more, and then took a deep breath, opening his eyes. "As much as I didn't want to bother Esme," he chuckled to himself again, "I really, _really_ didn't want to see you show up here this time."

I sighed. "Too bad. I'm what you've got. So get up, I'm taking you home."

His laughter stopped completely and he moaned, "Oh Christ, Carlisle, really? You? Are you going to pick me up off this floor?"

"No. You can get up yourself."

"Charlie pushed me down. That's why I couldn't get up. I'm not imagining things."

"I thought you were best friends?" I asked sarcastically.

"Oh sure," he nodded elaborately. "Besties with testes."

He began laughing again and I felt irritation crawling under my skin. "Fine," I grumbled under my breath. "You're getting what you want, Edward. Again."

I bent over and lifted him into a sitting position by the collar of his shirt.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "Whoa! Watch the shirt! Not even Charlie does that."

"I'm not Charlie."

He laughed sardonically. "Yeah, that's right. You're my _father_." He rolled his eyes, and I imagined that if his hands were free he would've bothered to put air quotes around the word he so clearly despised whenever it was in reference to me.

Silently, I pulled him to his feet, taking off his handcuffs. I held onto his arm, making sure he walked down the hall and out to the car.

"Hey, where's Girl?" he asked, looking around the station entrance as I placed the keys down on the desk for Tom.

I ignored the question, guiding him out the door.

"And Charlie?" he asked again. "No last chat with Charlie before we go about doing community service?"

I shook my head. "He's letting you off way too easy this time. He probably doesn't want to waste time doing paperwork on you again when his daughter's here."

"DAUGHTER?" Edward shouted. "Charlie has SPAWN?"

He tried to stop walking, as if he were really that shocked. I gripped his upper arm tighter and pulled him to my Mercedes, wanting to get him home before he blurted out something rude about said daughter.

"_Holy fucking shit_," he whispered incredulously. "Holy fucking shit, holy fucking shit! Shit, Carlisle! You're messing with me. No woman would want that, come on."

"I am not _messing_ with you," I informed him as I helped him sit in the passenger's seat.

"So you're saying some woman, way back in the day—prehistoric times, probably—had _sex_ with that? With Charlie?"

I shut the door in his face, getting fed up with his behavior towards the poor quiet girl I had just met. When I had walked around and settled into my own seat he started up again.

"That's just not right, Carlisle. You_ have_ _to_ agree. You met the guy." He gestured back toward the station while tugging on the seatbelt he had remembered to buckle around himself. "He should NOT have been allowed to procreate."

I ignored his rambling again, thinking about how Esme and I should go about punishing him when he was sober. It would have to be severe, I mused, since Charlie had decided to be so kind this time.

I almost didn't want Charlie to let him off, even though it would take stress away from Esme. Even after three months I still had no clue how to effectively punish Edward. The idea of doing it without any official help from the police sort of felt like standing at the very edge of a high diving board, looking down at the water, and not knowing how to swim.

"I mean, was she in her right mind? To get with the chief?" He paused his rant, and I glanced over in time to see his eyes widen and his hand slap over his mouth before it slid down. "Holy fucking shit," he whispered.

"What?" I asked, aggravated. "What now?"

He looked over at me, his signature half-smile taking over his features; the smile that melted Esme and allowed him to get his way with her nearly every single time.

I had a death grip on the steering wheel as we came to rest at a red light. "Are you going to tell me?" I asked again, attempting to take the sting out of my tone, hoping that it would make him want to answer.

"Girl—that's who Girl is, isn't she?" He turned and leaned his forehead against the window, closing his eyes. "Girl's his daughter. Holy fucking shit."

"Who is _girl_?" I persisted. I could have guessed, but I never liked to make any assumptions when it came to Edward.

As the light changed back to green and my right foot moved over to the accelerator, I glanced back over at Edward one last time, expecting an immediate response, or at least another rant, but instead he sat there unresponsive, eyes closed, with a lazy grin plastered on his face.

* * *

I stood behind Esme as she leaned on Edward's doorjamb, watching him sleep deeply and drunkenly in the bed and sheets we had got just for him.

"Maybe I should get a bucket?" she asked, turning back to look at me. "Just in case?"

"I don't think he got himself that drunk this time." I didn't really believe my words, so I sighed. "I guess it wouldn't hurt."

She disappeared down to the laundry room where we kept a few buckets. I stayed and continued to look around Edward's room.

It was the smallest bedroom in the whole house. We had two other larger ones, besides the master bedroom, but Edward didn't want them. If I were to estimate, I would say that the room he chose was the size of my old college dorm—a double room that felt better suited to be a dungeon as the year had gone on back then. I had thought that Edward would want to use this space as a separate study area just for him—glancing around the four walls of it, Esme had definitely painted it that off-white color you find in quiet places where people get work done, like and office or a library.

My own office was a larger, slightly different colored version of this room, after all.

But again, Edward didn't want it. He didn't really give a reason why. He stayed in the largest spare room when he first came home with us, but after a week he went to Esme and asked if he could move his double bed into what I had previously liked to call the Closet Room, because we would put random things in it as the house transitioned around it. He just kept insisting that he didn't need all the space the other rooms had.

Even from the beginning, he knew that if he went to Esme he would get the answer he wanted. I knew I gave off the "you're shit won't work with me" vibe.

Esme returned a moment later with two buckets, placing one on either side of his bed. "Just in case," she mumbled to me again when she saw the look on my face.

"You're too easy on him."

She breathed in tightly through her nose. "He's deserves a break sometimes."

I groaned, following her out of his bedroom. I waited for the door to click shut behind me before speaking again. "How can you say that, Esme? How can you say that when you see what he does?"

She gave me a hard stare.

I refused to crumble and ask her to explain herself, before agreeing with everything she said so we wouldn't argue. "What if Mrs. Stanley didn't see him this time? What if he got spray paint from somewhere and decided he wanted to practice being a graffiti artist again? Or what if he again decided it would be a good idea to climb the tree outside the post office at 3 a.m.? Do you want to wake up in the morning worried about where he was again, only to find out that he got himself up in that stupid tree only to be too drunk to get himself down?"

"Carlisle—of course not."

"Really? Because the way you act around him sometimes, you would think that you like that behavior. That you approve of it."

"Stop twisting what I said," she ground out, her voice harder than her stare. "I just don't want him to throw up on the floor if he does."

I raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so then how are we going to punish him this time? Charlie let him off; we have to do something."

She huffed. "I'll go down and buy a new lock for the alcohol cabinet."

"That's not enough."

"I know it's not enough!" she cried, frustrated and upset. "I just don't know what else to do right now."

"I think we should let him puke on the floor."

"What?" she gasped. "Carlisle!"

I nodded, my hand going to my hip. "No, I meant what I said. I think we should let him puke on the floor, that way he can step in it when he finally wakes up. And then he can clean it up himself. Maybe that way he'll start to learn."

"That's disgusting," she said, shaking her head.

"Yes, but it might work with him. I'll go take the buckets out of his room right now," I said authoritatively, but made no move back towards his room unless she would agree.

Esme sighed, her shoulders slumping forward slightly. I opened my arms and she stepped into them. Rubbing her back only made her grip me tighter, so I held her closer.

"He's just had such a miserable life, Carlisle," she mumbled into my shirt. "And he's so old for an adopted kid."

"I know," I murmured soothingly to her, my irritation immediately dissipating as I got to hold her.

We'd had this conversation many times before. Esme liked to repeat herself as a way to affirm her actions, and I liked listening to it so I could affirm them too.

"He's so old," she repeated. "He probably doesn't even feel like he'll be a part of our family, but I want him to, so badly." She looked up at me, her eyes widening. "I don't know how to get him to stop acting out. Sometimes I feel like we should treat him like we understand—and then maybe he'll calm down—but we don't understand, Carlisle. We can't. We can try, but we can't."

"I know," I soothed again, running my hand through her hair. "I don't know what I'm doing either."

"It's been months. He's been here for months. Nothing's really changed."

I nodded grimly.

"Maybe we should have adopted someone younger, then we'd ease into this parenting thing with smaller problems, like not playing nicely on the playground." She started shaking her head. "But I don't regret getting Edward. I don't. I really do love him already."

I chuckled a little. "Getting Edward," I repeated. "You make him sound like something we picked up off a shelf."

She slapped my chest lightly, smirking. "Stop. You know what I mean."

I held her in the hallway, occasionally swaying our bodies back and forth as we contemplated what to do. I couldn't remember what I was expecting before we decided to ask Edward if he wanted to come home with us. It certainly wasn't a teenager who would so blatantly and audaciously break every law teenagers normally broke quietly. His social worker had even said he was the most well-mannered of the older teenagers.

Maybe we did something wrong. Maybe he just hates us—or me, more specifically. Maybe we would never know what to do.

After a couple of minutes, I felt my wife shift in my arms as she lifted up to press a kiss to my chin. Her breath tickled my neck as she spoke.

"Do you love him too, Carlisle?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Conjugate Pairs**

**Chapter 3**

My body was on fire, my head was going to explode, and there was a good chance I was going to vomit, choke on it, and then die.

I was that miserable. I blamed it on the fact that no one had made me drink any water before I passed out. All that is needed to prevent a hangover is to drink a fuck ton of water, and no one had thought to give me any. You would think that they would know how to handle me by this point. It was a shame. I blamed the lack of water on Carlisle. If Esme had picked me up then she would have actually tried to take care of me.

There was still very much a strong haze in my mind, but I opened my eyes and tried to look around. Yeah, I had made it to my room. Yeah, I was under my covers, and it felt like I was still wearing my jeans. And yeah, the sun was still in the sky.

This situation was nothing new to me. Since living with the Cullens, I had woken up like this many a time already.

The thought made me sicker, so much that I could feel my stomach turn and taste the vomit at the back of my throat, and I forced myself to stop thinking, and just go back to sleep.

o o o o o o o

When I woke up several hours later, I was a new man. No hangover. No fire. No head explosions. And definitely no choking on vomit and dying. It was miraculous, but I wasn't really surprised. I was a young, virile man after all. I could bounce back like a freaking rubber band.

The first thing I did when I got out of bed was trip on the clothes piled on the rug that I kept lumped up right by where I liked to stand to get to the bed. After I dusted myself off, I went downstairs.

The house was silent. The house was always fucking silent. Esme and Carlisle rarely made any noise. I sometimes wondered if they were robots, or if they even made sounds when they had sex.

But then I would realize that that meant imagining Carlisle getting freaky and I stopped.

I walked through the pristine living room, the glistening foyer, and ended up in the mother-loving kitchen, also known as Edward's second bedroom, because I spent way too much time in there. And Esme didn't make it difficult. She installed a TV and there was food, lots of food. Why would there be any need for any other room in the house? Especially when the seats at the kitchen bar were so squishy and comfy? Answer: there is no need. There is never a need for another room, besides a bedroom. I didn't care how nice the couch was or how the plasma TV seemed to dominate an entire wall in the uptight living room—I had easy instant access to a shit ton of food, a place to sit, something to occupy my mind if I wanted, and that was all she wrote.

I went straight to the pantry door. I hummed, possibly the Rocky theme song, to myself as I stepped inside and flicked on the light, even though it wasn't entirely necessary. I just liked to see the food all lit up—the food which was packed everywhere, lining every shelf, all the way up to the ceiling. Esme, the saint, even had a little ladder stored in case someone needed to climb up and get something.

But today, oh but today, there was a gaping hole in the wall of food, and that gaping hole was exactly where my Goldfish supply used to be.

"Esme!" I called out. When there was no reply, I turned and stepped out of the pantry, and tried again, "Esme!"

Silence. Motherfucking silence.

There was only one way to rectify the situation. A journey must be made to a bright land with even more food than Esme's kitchen: the supermarket.

Everyone has that one snack, that one thing that is always in their kitchen, and mine happened to be Goldfish. I often swore that Goldfish cheese was injected with crack before they baked it, because I couldn't get enough. So I thought nothing of it when I went back to my room and found my wallet and the keys to the Volvo they gave me, because for some reason my Goldfish supply had been depleted without my noticing, and I needed it back on Esme's shelves.

The drive was quiet; I didn't put on any music. I couldn't enjoy listening to the radio when I was so focused on getting more Goldfish. I was like a dog panting after a treat sometimes, but you would too if you ran out of crack.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled into the supermarket parking lot. And I don't remember the details of it, but it was only a matter of minutes before I was standing in front of my favorite orange and white colored packaging, with the happy fish smiling at me.

Happy, smiling fish. There is nothing wrong with that. Best marketing, too, in my opinion.

Grabbing about five bags of them, I made my through the aisles, eager to pay and get out there, but that was before I saw an incredible amount of brown hair attached to a body that blocked my way.

There was something familiar about the hair, and I guess the person attached too, that made me stop. It was a girl's head, and below it she was wearing a very baggy sweatshirt, that I was most sure about. But I couldn't for the life of me think of why she was so familiar. I hadn't seen her around school, and I hadn't been cruising other town centers for girls lately, so I didn't know why I knew her. . .

And then I remembered earlier this morning, in bits and pieces. A lot of getting mashed into Charlie's cruiser window and being thrown onto the floor of my usual jail cell. Somewhere in between those flashes of being jostled around, there was this girl's head.

Before I knew it, I had sidled in-between the girl—who I suddenly remembered creatively referring to as Girl—and the shelf of whatever that she was looking at, and found myself staring down at her stupidly while her eyes darted all around.

"Um, hi," she said as her eyes settled back on me.

And damnit I was a lucky son of a bitch, because this girl was very pretty, and I had managed to meet her before any of the other assholes in this town.

I had a flash of me rubbing my face into the ground while she laughed, and I smiled. "Hi," I replied.

"Uh," Girl began, and paused, running a hand through her hair.

"I'm sorry, I'm being all intrusive and in your face, but I really don't care right now," I said honestly. "I was just getting more Goldfish and I recognized you—" I had a flash of trying to introduce myself to her, but couldn't remember her name now, "— and I realized I don't know your name yet."

"Oh, I'm Bella," Girl said. She took a step back and shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and rolled her lips inward nervously. I smiled wider.

"Bella," I began, and then took a deep breath, because I didn't really know what I was doing. I just knew I had to talk to her. "Nice to meet you. Sorry I was, uh, incapacitated earlier when we met."

"No problem," she dismissed quickly.

"I'd say it doesn't happen very often but I don't want to lie to you." I beamed charmingly at her and she responded, giving me a small smile back.

Then I had the most horrible flash ever—one where Carlisle was leading me to a car and telling me that Girl was Charlie's offspring.

Girl was Swan Spawn.

"You're Charlie's kid," I stated lamely.

"Yeah." She nodded.

I didn't know if this fact should make me want to run away from her or not, but looking at her I decided very quickly that she could be nothing like Charlie. She was soft and quiet, not a pushy overweight cop who had fucking eagle eyes in his head, just for me.

Then I worried that Charlie knew I was trying to chat up his daughter, and I gulped.

"Are you an only child?" I asked.

"Yup," she replied.

Now I worried I was chatting up Charlie's only daughter, and he didn't just have eagle eyes for me, but a freaking laser gun aimed between my eyebrows.

But I didn't move. I had been a suave fucker up until now, and I wasn't going to stop. Like I mentioned, she was very pretty. She didn't exactly look like Charlie either, and that would make me the biggest fucking idiot to pass this up.

And then I remembered— "You know, I have a feeling we're going to be good friends."

"Why's that?" she asked, looking at me skeptically.

"Because Charlie Swan is your dad, and Charlie and me happen to be the best of friends."

She laughed at that. "Yeah, you certainly looked like best friends earlier."

"I know," I nodded, "our bond is unlike any other."

She chuckled some more.

"Don't be jealous, though," I told her. "I'm sure Charlie and you have an exceptional bond also. I'm sure he'll make time for you."

Still smiling, she shook her head at me. "Thanks. I needed the reassurance."

"Anytime. It must be tough being the third wheel," I said sympathetically.

Girl—Bella—rolled her eyes. "It's a hard life."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She scoffed out a laugh. "Maybe. Is that all you're going to buy?" She pointed to my Goldfish as she asked, changing the subject.

"Is this all that I'm going to buy?" I repeated incredulously. "Bella, this is all that I ever buy."

She raised an eyebrow. "That's all that you ever buy," she repeated also. "Why?"

"Because. . . it's Goldfish. It's. . . there's nothing better than it. It's cheesy fish crackers made by Jesus."

Smiling, she said, "Okay."

I gaped at her a little. "Okay? What does that mean: okay? You don't agree? You don't like Goldfish?"

Her eyes widened as she smiled some more. "No, I like Goldfish. I just never liked them enough to call them Jesus crackers."

"Oh, it's okay," I assured her. "We live in evil, modern times. Not everyone can recognize holiness when they come across it."

She laughed. "Well thank you for informing me."

"No problem," I said, and fought to keep my grin down as I bobbed my head nonchalantly with my words. "Are you trying to grocery shop right now?" I asked, suddenly noticing the basket she was carrying in the crook of her elbow. "Do you need me to leave you alone so you can finish?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking down into her very empty basket before looking back up at me. "I was. Charlie told me to go out and get some food that I like, to, uh, make myself at home, but I can't think of anything right now."

She seemed so lost all of a sudden as she switched her basket from one arm to the other, that I couldn't help myself. "Want some help?" I offered.

"Help," she said. "You want to help me pick out what I want to eat?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"I don't know."

"Listen, this supermarket is a scary place. You're often surrounded by geriatrics who've never crossed the town border who come to buy some bread and milk and they walk so slow you almost always crash into them. I can help you."

Bella's lips quirked. "You can?"

"Yes, I can. The people who operate this place are tricky bastards, too, Girl. They place things that should be side by side so far apart it's like walking a maze trying to find everything. Trust me, you need me."

"Did you just call me 'Girl'?" she laughed.

"Did I?" I asked. I couldn't remember, but knew it was highly likely that I did. "It was what I called you in my head before I knew your name," I shrugged. "Sorry it slipped."

"It's okay. I called you Drunk Kid before you told me your name was Edward."

I raised my eyebrows, pleasantly surprised. "See, we're not so different. We'll be great friends."

She nodded, smiling, and then shook her head to herself.

"Now, are you ready to shop?" I asked.

"You seem like you're very experienced with the whole supermarket even though you only buy Goldfish."

I nodded wisely. "Yeah, I am. In the beginning, which was three months ago when I moved here, I didn't know what I was doing. I knew I needed my Goldfish though. I spent a lot of time hunting it down, and in the process I learned the tricks of this place. You're lucky you have me to keep you from the same pitfalls."

"Well then," she said, slightly mockingly, "lead the way, Drunk Kid."

I laughed, and then did just as she asked.

o o o o o o o

Apparently it's not cool to leave the house without telling anybody after you get caught by the law. I didn't think anything of it—didn't think Goldfish shopping was a crime too—but according to the looks on Esme's and Carlisle's face when I got back, it was.

But I figured as soon as I told them that I made nice with Bella Swan I would be forgiven. And they would certainly understand that anyone would offer to help her grocery shop, and that even the most antisocial person in the world would lose track of time as they spent it picking out Mac and Cheese and blueberries (and a whole bunch of other crap) with her.

Bella was just so easy to talk to. And she didn't believe half the things I said, which was amazing, because I never meant half the things I said. And it was new to meet someone who reacted to me like that, and exciting, and after the time I'd had, I thought Carlisle, or at least Esme, would appreciate that.

I was dead wrong.

Both of them were sitting opposite each other at the dining room table when I came in. They had their arms crossed, scowls on their faces. And when they wouldn't immediately look at me, even though it was obvious that I just entered the room, I knew I had fucked up.

"Where did you go?" Carlisle asked, looking at his wife instead of me.

I lifted the plastic bag I had in hand for proof. "The grocery store."

"Oh?" he asked lightly. "And what did you buy at the grocery store?"

"Goldfish," I said, and it suddenly sounded really stupid.

"It took you an hour to get a bag of Goldfish?"

"Well, I got more than one bag."

Carlisle looked at me then, and raised both of his stupid blonde eyebrows at me.

"I got, like, five."

Esme turned her head to look out the window. I sighed, because I knew I wasn't answering the question the way they wanted me to.

"And I ran into Charlie's daughter, Bella."

Still, they didn't say anything. They just waited. And it was getting painful.

"I helped her grocery shop. That's why I took so long. She's new in town and I showed her around the grocery store."

"Is the grocery store in Forks very different from the grocery store in the town she came from?" Carlisle asked.

The urge to smack him in the face for talking to me like that was strong, and so I decided to be sarcastic too. "Actually, yes. The Forks grocery store actually sells food. Bella didn't know what food was, so I gave her a quick tutorial."

"Enough, Edward."

"Edward," Esme began, looking at me now. "What made you think it was okay to leave the house before talking to us first? You were passed out—drunk. You didn't think you'd be in trouble with us? You didn't think you should've stuck around to find out if you were going to be allowed to take the car anywhere?"

I crumbled just a little when she was all reasonable and shit with me. And because her tone was firm but not too firm, and because she wasn't being a bitch to me like Carlisle was, I found my own voice getting all soft and apologetic, even though I didn't exactly feel soft and apologetic for buying Goldfish and talking to Bella.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "I really am. I just woke up and was kind of in a daze and I wanted some Goldfish, but we didn't have any, and I tried calling out for you, but you didn't answer. So I just left." I shrugged when I finished explaining, still feeling stupid.

"Trying to call out for me doesn't count, Edward," Esme said firmly.

"We're taking away the car for the next two weeks," Carlisle added, "just for this little stunt you pulled going to the grocery store. And you better have been decent to Bella after the way you acted this morning."

"How do you know how I acted this morning?" I asked defensively. There was no doubt he was aware of the gist of my actions, but how I acted was a little more specific, and I didn't like the way Carlisle was using it to brand me.

"I know because Charlie told me when I picked you up, so don't you think for one second I'm making it up. I'm going to find out if you actually were nice to her. She deserves an apology from you."

"I apologized!" I interjected.

"I won't believe it until I hear it from the Chief."

"Carlisle," Esme said calmly. "Stop that and finish telling him the rest."

The little cunt sat up even straighter, his hands in neat fists on the table, and his eyes boring into mine. "We're taking away the car for two weeks. Esme will drive you to school and pick you up. We're removing all the alcohol from this house; it will no longer exist here and you won't get any access to it from us anymore."

I snorted. Carlisle glared.

"You're also grounded for a month. So even after two weeks when you get the car back you'll be expected to go straight to school and straight back. You'll have to get permission to go anywhere and do anything else. You have a curfew of eight p.m. during the week and nine-thirty on the weekends. If you break any of these rules or don't get permission from Esme or I the car is gone again. And if at the end of the month your attitude hasn't started to change we're going to sit down and talk about therapy for you."

"WHAT?" I exploded. "_Therapy?"_ I was fine with the rules. I would let them think I was following them, but therapy was a whole 'nother ball game.

"I don't need to sit down and talk about my feelings," I told him indignantly. "I don't need to lay down on some shrink's couch and moan about how all my problems secretly have to do with some fucking unresolved shit with my mother. That's bullshit. I'm not going to do it. It's not going to happen."

"It's not happening now, Edward," Esme said, and stood up from her chair to face me. "But if something doesn't start to change then it will. And that's that."

She walked out of the room. I turned back to Carlisle to find that he was also standing.

"Now I think you should go up to your room and start thinking real hard about how you've been behaving around here. We all know you never used to act this way before," he said sternly, his stare still cold and serious.

And because I was so fucking mad and pissed off that he could talk to me like I was a screw up, and that the bedroom that happened to have all of my shit in it was the only one that didn't make me feel like I was suffocating, I actually did what he said. I stomped up the stairs of his stupid mansion and slammed his stupid door, just so he'd remember I'd never be happy with the idea of stupid fucking therapy.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN**: You should know that MarchHare5 basically beta'd this, and she's awesome, but she hasn't seen all of it, so you'll have to excuse any mistakes you see as mine.

**Conjugate Pairs  
**

**Chapter 4 **

I spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of family.

I didn't know how to define it, mostly because knowing Edward had changed how I viewed many things. I thought often about how family is something concrete that you can always turn to, or it should be. For someone like Edward, it wasn't. But more importantly, no matter how secure and concrete family should be, I thought most about how family comes about.

Growing up, that idea of concreteness of family somehow fermented this idea that family is unchanging. That those people will always be the same. Yet no matter how static family structure is, the making of it is completely dynamic. To create a family for oneself, one has to go out and accept a completely new person into one's very established world and change it. It seemed to me to be something nearly everyone would be open to, especially those who never had a very strong family structure.

I thought of dating Esme, and the slow and steady process it took to know and love her, and ultimately accept her as family, as concrete.

But there is no dating Edward. The process of accepting him into the family was slow, but it certainly wasn't steady. The amount of time it took to adopt him wasn't proportional to the amount of time it took to get to know him. We automatically accepted him, and then we had to get to know him. It was backwards.

Then I usually thought of adopting Edward as if I were adopting a dog. You see a golden retriever who's been checked out, and you've been told it's well-mannered. You meet it a couple of times and it's great. You become excited to take it home. Yet when you do, all it does is squirrel itself away and bite when it comes near you. You try to train the dog, let it become acclimated and go easy on it. But what happens when things don't improve? What if the dog just isn't a fit for you and your family? You could take the dog back, give it to someone else.

Obviously, Edward wasn't a dog. Edward was human, and there was no returning him. Sometimes I thought that things would be much easier, if only Edward were a dog.

Instead he was an emotional, hormonal teenager who was so much older than all the other kids in his home. He seemed stable despite his childhood and time spent in foster situations. But all he did was bite us. It seemed to me that he wasn't capable of viewing family the same way I did. And if he ever came close to it, he fought against it.

And in this difficult situation, I had my wife asking me if I loved him.

Did I love Edward?

I loved the idea of having a child; someone to raise. I loved the idea of family. I loved that I was capable of accepting someone new into my circle of people, and that I could provide stability to someone who didn't really have it before.

I did not love the idea of someone mistreating me for trying to give them love and acceptance. I did not love the idea that Edward was nearly grown already. It felt like I was too late to help him, although it wasn't a huge problem. If Edward wanted it, and I thought he would, like any other kid in the system, then I would still be able to help him. Turning a certain age never automatically made you an adult, anyway.

But Edward didn't want any help. Or at least, that was how he always acted.

He was difficult. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how I should feel.

Except for right now. I knew how I should feel right now, as I watched him walk into the kitchen meekly, as if he were trying to be seen and not heard.

He didn't look at me as he made his way over to the pantry. He disappeared inside, and I stared after the spot where his body just was, and waited until he came out before I tried to talk to him.

Cardboard boxes containing all kinds of food could be heard shuffling around inside the pantry, along with the rustle of Edward's clothes, a sigh from his mouth, and the scrape of the pantry stool. A couple of minutes went by, and then he was out, heading directly for the cabinet where we kept our dishes.

He still didn't look at me. He moved about the kitchen as if I weren't there, completely ignoring my presence which was pretty impossible to ignore, as I was sitting at the island in the center of the kitchen. Edward had to walk right past me to go from the pantry to the cabinet.

Still, I waited patiently for the moment where he would sit. So, when he finally sat down across from me with his cereal and his glass of orange juice, I was perfectly ready to communicate with him.

But he spoke before I could.

"What?" Edward said, still looking casually down into his bowl instead of me.

"I don't know—what?" I replied calmly.

"What are you looking at?" he clarified, his tone harder now.

"I'm looking at you. Is that a problem?"

"Yes."

"What? I'm not allowed to look at you?"

"No, you're not," he said flippantly, and let his spoon clank against the side of his bowl as he finally looked up. "Not like that."

I took in his scowl and sighed. "How am I looking at you, Edward?"

"I don't know, like you want to yell at me, and you already did a good job of that yesterday."

His head craned down to his breakfast, and his spoon moved rapidly as he slurped up what remained of his cereal. I waited until he was done before I spoke.

"I'm not going to yell at you."

"Yeah, _okay_," he replied sarcastically.

"I just want to know what you were thinking."

He shoved his bowl in front of him, and let his head fall forward. His hands ran through his hair, and scratched at it rapidly much like a dog would, before he bolted up out of his chair, and began walking toward the staircase.

I followed after him.

"Edward?" I called. "Come back and finish talking to me."

Midway up the flight of stairs to his room, he whirled around, gripping the railing as he looked down at me incredulously.

"I wasn't thinking anything."

I pursed my lips. "You weren't thinking… anything."

"Nope. Not at all," he said glibly, and turned to finish running up the stairs.

Again, I followed, slowly, at my own pace. When I came to Edward's door, I waited and listened as I heard him rustle around in his room. When, after a considerable amount of time during which I guessed he was getting dressed, he opened his door and found me there, the surprise lasted on his face for only a second. Then it was replaced with a scowl again.

"I told you," he began, irritated, "I wasn't thinking. I'll think next time."

"And that's supposed to satisfy me?" I asked skeptically. "Edward—" I stopped when the words escaped me. I took a moment to breathe and then began again. "Edward, you don't have to do the things you do to get attention. You could just talk to us, you know. We're here for you."

If anything, though, his scowl became deeper with my words.

"Okay, Carlisle," he said blandly, looking down the hall instead of meeting my eye. "I'll talk to you next time."

He smirked to himself, as if thinking of a private joke, and then darted back down the stairs.

From farther back up the hall, Esme came down from the third floor staircase that led to our bedroom.

"Is he ready for school?" she asked as she walked up to me.

I bent down and gave her a quick kiss. "I think so."

"You sound tired," she remarked.

"I am," I agreed. "I just tried talking to Edward."

It annoyed the hell out of me when she bit back a smirk. "Okay. Well, I'll just take him to school. You won't have to worry about it."

And then, she too, darted down the stairs.

o o o o o o o

Later, much later than I would have expected, I was still sitting at the desk in my office, glaring at the effuse of paperwork remaining on desk, which looked much like a paler version of tangled jungle leaves. I drowned in them, taking too long to go through it all, while my mind pulled itself in several different directions.

Of course, all confusion focused itself at the sound of a knock at my door.

"Come in," I called. Esme entered, quietly closing the door behind her before she stepped forward and delicately seated herself at the loveseat perpendicular to my desk.

"I wanted to come in and talk to you before I go pick Edward up at school," she said by way of explaining her presence. And while not needed, I was certainly interested to hear it.

"What did you want to talk about? Edward?" I guessed.

She nodded, looking down at her hands, thinking before she spoke.

"You're not here a lot of the time, or when you are, you spend most of your time in here, doing work you didn't finish at the hospital." She glanced up at me from underneath her eyelashes cautiously, as if she were treading water around me.

"This doesn't sound like we're talking about Edward," I remarked.

"And I'm not saying this bothers me, or that it's causing problems," she continued, ignoring me. "Or maybe it is," she said, shaking her head as if slightly confused. "But what I'm trying to say is that you not being here means you're not around Edward as much as I have been."

"Okay," I said, feeling slightly on guard.

"I think you should try to bond with Edward more."

Her statement, for some reason, shocked me a little. Maybe it was because I was expecting those words to be angry or hurt, and there was no way that they were. Her posture, her tone, her facial expression—none of it betrayed any sort of anger or upset. Simply concern, and possibly hesitance.

"Bond with Edward more," I repeated, letting it sink in.

"Yes," she said firmly.

"Okay," I said again.

"Okay?"

I rolled my eyes and smirked a little. "Yes, okay. Were you expecting a different answer?"

She seemed a little dazed, but smirked back. "No, not really. It's just that you've shut yourself off in here more than usual. I can tell you've been frustrated with it. I thought that maybe—"

"Esme," I interrupted. "I know what you're going to say, and I don't want you to say it. I agree that I should bond more with Edward."

Her answering smile was much larger now. "Good, I'm glad. And I won't say what I was going to say." She stopped to let out a small, breathless laugh. "It's just that, Carlisle, you can't get tired from just _talking_ to him, you know? Especially first thing in the morning. I understand that everything just happened yesterday, but we've already given him his punishment."

I hung my head, thinking more deeply about what she was saying. I had to admit to myself that she had a point.

"And if you were around him a little more," she continued, "If you just bonded with him, did something that only guys do together or whatever it is, then maybe just talking to him wouldn't be so difficult?"

She finished her sentence as if it were a question. I looked up to find her looking up at me, her eyes round and head tilted slightly, and I found myself mirroring the motion, as if it could get me to see things her way even more. She smiled kindly, and again, I felt myself smiling kindly back.

"Come here," I said to her, pushing away from my desk. She came, sitting on the edge, crushing some of the paper under her thighs (which gave me an irrational surge of joy). I reached up and held her hands securely in my own. I traced her fingers and laced them with mine, thinking all the while about everything she just said.

I found myself playing with the ring I put around her finger five years ago after several moments. I looked up and smiled into her face one last time, my thoughts finally settled.

A family is not comprised of strangers, but it takes two strangers to start a family. And that meant that, in the end, Edward would have to stop being a stranger to me, if I wanted him to be family.

And I did.**  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN**: MarchHare5's magic eyeballs did wonders on this document, but any remaining mistakes you see really are mine.

* * *

**Conjugate Pairs**

**Chapter 5 **

After a shit storm weekend of bad luck, it was like the clouds had parted and Jesus' warmth was shining down upon me. Well, not exactly, but I felt like I knew a secret that nobody else did, and I was loving keeping it to myself. It made me feel warm and smug, and it was pretty fucking great.

I would take a guess and say the clouds started drifting apart as soon as Esme dropped me off at school. She pulled away from the curb of the roundabout that all the parents pulled into to drop their kids off, and I was watching her head back towards the house when it happened.

Girl pulled up in a beat-up car that looked like it was born before windshield wipers were. She slammed her door hard to get it to close, and in all the concentration that took, she didn't notice that the side of her baggy sweatshirt was caught, and she fell back into the door and slid to the ground before she even realized what had gone down.

I decided to get comfortable, leaning up against a lamppost that marked the beginning of the roundabout, and waited for her head to pop back up.

It did. It swiveled around nervously before she freed herself from the car door; and she, probably thinking that she was walking away from the small incident without anyone noticing, walked towards the school entrance briskly, with her steps sure and her head held high, pretending that nothing had happened.

Those clear brown eyes of hers could get pretty wide, I noticed, when she finally saw me watching her. Without saying anything, we both knew with one short stare that I knew she was a klutz. Needless to say, I was pretty fail at holding back my laughter, while she, still white-faced with shock, ignored me as she strode on past, her head tucked into her chest now as if it could prevent her from being seen by me.

It was a truly beautiful way to begin the morning. Next, I would estimate and say the sun started shining through the parted clouds around homeroom time. Girl was hurrying along the hallway with a map and a schedule in her hands. I slowed down my walk and watched her come towards me. At an intersection of hallways, her head sprung up, her eyes narrowing as she looked up at the numbers on the doors above her head, before they began reexamining whatever numbers were on her schedule. In a moment of doubt, where it seemed her head popped back up to analyze room numbers again, our eyes met. There was another moment where her face went blank but her eyes widened with shock, and then the act that caused the sun to burst through came about. She smiled. And blushed. And then she quickly turned and ran down the hall.

Now for the part that makes me feel like I'm keeping a secret, that's making me smug. This, right here. Chemistry class, of all things.

Girl walked in the door with Mike Newton on one elbow and Jessica Stanley on the other. She was smiling politely and talking with them. Jessica seemed too eager, jumping in with comments that were too excited for me to think them sincere. Mike was being his usual nice guy self, offering help and giving advice… and whatever.

There weren't too many lab benches that were completely open, and I noticed Mike scanning the room for one as they walked in. Jessica darted ahead to one and sat, waiting for either Mike or Bella to join her. There was another open lab bench behind Jessica that Mike was eyeing. Bella was scanning the room.

Hesitating a little, I did something I never do; I moved my backpack off the empty chair beside me. Girl's eyes caught the movement, following my backpack to the floor. I waited until her eyes trailed up to mine, as she glanced to see who the bag belonged to, and then looked down at my folded arms. Ten seconds later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mike Newton slide into the seat beside Jessica Stanley.

Bella Swan slid in beside me.

o o o o o o o

"Okay," I whispered. "I don't give two shits about ionic bonds anymore."

Girl laughed lightly, but kept working on the stupid sheet we were supposed to finish and pass in at the end of class.

"You're doing a good job, though. Keep it up," I encouraged, and then sat back and watched the clock. Class was over in twenty minutes.

"What?" She stared at me incredulously. "Um, no. I'm not that girl."

"What? You're not _what_ girl? The girl that's good at chemistry? Uh, yes you are."

"No." She shook her head. "I'm not the girl that does the work for everyone else. Nice try, though. It's your turn to do something."

She slid the paper across the desk and withdrew her hand. Crossing her arms across her chest, she waited for me to start, smirking.

I felt myself looking at the paper as if it were crawling with fatal germs.

"But—I could get every answer wrong."

She shrugged. "That's okay. That's what learning's about."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

I took a deep breath and let it out. "My handwriting is really bad."

Her lips twisted a bit. "I'm sure the teacher is used to reading your handwriting by now."

Looking around my desk exaggeratedly, I threw up my hands in defeat. "Ah, well. It's doesn't matter. I don't have anything to write with."

Girl's pen immediately appeared under my nose. "You can use my pen."

I cast her a sideways glance. "I like to chew on my writing utensils. I wouldn't be able to stop myself from gnawing on yours just because you're new and nice and everything."

"Me and the pen will be able to handle it. Go ahead, use it."

"Are you sure?" I repeated.

"Yes," she also repeated.

I sighed loudly. "You drive a hard bargain."

The teacher, Mrs. Fasano, interrupted our conversation.

"Mr. Cullen," she called, her chin resting on her palm, her ugly bushy eyebrows raised up high on her forehead. I gritted my teeth at the name she called me.

"Yes?"

"You're talking about the worksheet, correct?"

"Of course, Mrs. Fasano," I assured. "I wouldn't dream of discussing anything else!"

She sighed softly, her chin coming out of her hand. "I don't need dramatics today, Edward. Just finish the work. Participate. Don't bother your partner, and don't make her do all the work."

"Yes, Mrs. Fasano," I muttered.

I turned back to Bella to find her giggling quietly at me.

"You almost got us in trouble," I told her.

"What?" she exclaimed, her giggles stopping abruptly. "No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did," I insisted. I snatched the pen from her hand and began tapping the sheet with it, trying to think about ionic bonds again. But not trying too hard, mind you.

"How did I almost get us in trouble?" she asked, indignant.

"You kept talking."

"I kept trying to get you to do work."

"And that's precisely why we got in trouble. If we hadn't been trying to do work, we wouldn't have gotten yelled at."

Staring at the paper was going to give me a headache, so I sat up and watched the emotions struggle with each other on Bella's face. For the most part, I think she was amused.

With a motion that made her look like she was getting ready to cast spells like Mickey Mouse in _Fantasia_, she thrust back the sleeves of her enormous sweatshirt one at a time, and then raked her long hair back and out of her face.

"Are you suggesting that we don't do work right now?"

"Listen, Girl—"

"Girl?" Her eyebrows went nearly as high as Fasano's. "You're still calling me Girl? Did you forget my name?"

"No."

"Then why are you still calling me Girl?"

I shrugged, and smirked. "Because I feel like it."

"Prove it—what's my name?"

"Bella Swan," I announced confidently. "Daughter to Charles Swan, Chief of Police and my best friend on the force."

Her lips pursed, either in annoyance at being proved wrong, or as an attempt to hide a smile. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then began again. "But that's not fair. I can't call you Drunk Kid in public just because I feel like it." Her lips pouted, and the smirk wouldn't leave my face.

"You could," I reasoned. "Nothing's stopping you. I mean, I definitely wouldn't." The corners of her mouth lifted up at that. "But after awhile someone might take you aside and tell you that it's not nice to call the foster kid names."

She snorted. "Even if it's true?"

"Yes," I said dryly. "Even if it's true."

Girl's smile was winning now. She leaned forward and nudged the paper towards me. "You should finish this before class is over. Even though _you_ think not doing it will keep us out of trouble, I don't think you're right about that one."

"Whoa, hold on a minute," I said, bracing my hands out in front of me. "That wasn't what I was implying earlier. I was going to clarify and say that we got in trouble because you handed the work to _me_. Now, if you had kept the paper in front _you_ and kept working silently, then we'd be fine."

She looked at me carefully. "Your logic is not going to work. I've done most of it already. You can finish. Go."

She pushed the paper forward again.

"Damn," I muttered. "I take it back."

"What?"

"You're not nice at all."

Her mouth fell open.

"Yes I am! I'm perfectly nice!"

"Mr. Cullen!" The sharp voice of Fasano broke through our bubble again.

I snapped my head in her direction, waiting for her to admonish us.

"You don't have much time left. Stop chatting with Bella and finish your work, please. This is the last time I'm going to ask you."

I didn't respond. Instead, I ducked my head down to the paper and got to work, fighting to keep a grin off my face. Ionic bonds really were stupid, I really didn't give two shits about them, and highly doubted that they would ever be important or relevant to me again. I solved one problem, and looked at Bella, who was looking down as if Fasano's chastisement actually meant something, even though it was only me who was called on. And it's always just me that gets called out on stuff.

I nudged her elbow with mine and smiled when she looked at me.

"See? You got us in trouble, meany."

She wouldn't look me in the eye when she returned my smile. "Whatever. Just finish the damn thing," she murmured.

o o o o o o o

The bell rang shrilly overhead, and everyone in the classroom shot up out of their seats as if they were race horses jumping out of their gates. Well, nearly everyone was like that, except for the few jaded ones that just didn't give a fuck anymore, and Bella and myself.

"Lunch time," I said awkwardly. I didn't know if I was trying to figure out where she was sitting, or who she wanted to sit with, or if I was inviting her to sit with me. And that last option seemed dangerous for her.

"Yup," she replied, just as awkwardly.

Girl finished putting her notebooks away in one compartment of her backpack, and then opened another smaller one to put her pens in. I wanted to shake my head, because who gave a damn if their pens were in the appropriate spot? But Girl did, and so I waited while she did her thing.

She looked up as she shoved her zipper closed. Her hair had fallen back into her face a bit, and add to that her oversized sweatshirt and the ratted bottoms of her jeans, which were especially frayed around the heels of her Converses, and it was like she had just stepped out of the Grunge era, unaware that most girls were either Emo now or so fucking immaculate it was hard to tell if it was okay to touch them.

"Well," she began, and even in that one word I detected some sarcasm, "thank you for your help today in class; I couldn't have done it without you."

"Oh," I began, in the same tone as hers, "anytime. Grocery shopping, chemistry equations—I know everything. I can always help."

"Right," she said, her mouth again fighting to tamp down a smile, I thought. "Well, see ya."

And then she didn't wait; she bolted out of the room. Late out of the gate, compared to everyone else, but she bolted. I was left to watch her go, beginning to think that maybe she knew something I didn't; that she knew that maybe because Charlie and I were so close, it wasn't a good idea for her to get so close to me. And now I was beginning to think that if that were true, then maybe she was right.

But that didn't stop me from following her.

Bella had made it several yards down the hall, in the opposite direction of the cafeteria. It was surprising, really, that she was able to move that fast, considering the fact that her loose clothes should've dragged her down. She spun on her heel and turned into a room some ways toward the very end of the hall, and all I could think was that that wasn't right, especially when I didn't see her come out of the room once she had realized her mistake.

So I walked a little faster.

All of the classrooms at this end of the hall were empty, with the doors closed and the lights off. Shaking the knob of each door proved that the teachers did their job and locked their doors after them, so there was no chance of Girl going into one of them. I turned in circles, wondering where the hell she could have gone to—because I'm pretty sure she wasn't capable of disappearing into thin air—when I saw it: the girl's bathroom.

Very clever, I thought. A huge cliché, no one would think that people, new people especially, would disappear into bathrooms at lunchtime.

Slowly, I pushed open the door to the bathroom, completely disregarding the word on it and the fact I was lacking the correct equipment to enter. The bottom half of the walls were made of tiles, and so was the floor. The paint was shabby, almost as old as the school itself. Yes, it was a delightful place for a new person to spend their lunch.

The soft thud of the door closing was enough to warn her that I was in here. Her feet, which were resting flat on the ground inside of the stall she occupied, quickly yet silently disappeared at the sound. Suddenly, I felt really stupid, so I decided to go all out.

"Hello?" I called.

There was no response, but I had already seen her feet. I had her cornered.

I ducked down and checked underneath the entire line of stalls, and then sat back up and frowned at the simple row of sinks and mirrors opposite them.

There was no couch. There was no television. There was no snack machine of any kind . . . so then why did girls come in here in groups? None of the legends were true. . .

Sighing with disappointment, I tried again. "Hello? I know you're in here."

Again, this did not elicit a response. She was being stubborn.

I went directly to the stall where I saw her feet disappear and pushed. The door did not budge.

"Is this sanitary?" I asked, knowing she wouldn't say anything. "I hope you're not eating a homemade lunch in here. I'm pretty positive you'd get syphilis or something. Lots of whores use this bathroom. I'm not sure it's contagious, but you never know."

I heard a quiet chuckle and the spin, then tear, of the toilet paper roll. Two seconds later, there was the clink of the stall's lock as she slid it back, and the door finally opened.

Girl was sitting cross-legged on the toilet, her backpack being hugged to her chest, toilet paper waddled in one fist, and eyes red-rimmed.

"Is it comfortable sitting like that?"

She shrugged, not looking at me.

"And are you _crying_?"

Apparently, this was the wrong question to ask. Her head dropped onto her backpack with a groan, her hair going all over the place. I heard her suck in a deep breath, and then let it out with a wobble in it.

"Oh shit," I muttered. "Don't cry. Please don't cry."

It was too late, though; she sniffled. I fought down the desire to run out of the bathroom and let her figure her shit out on her own and took a step forward.

I patted her on her back like I would a dog I thought was going to bite me, but I didn't know how to comfort her. Her back heaved under my hand for a few moments, and then she sat up, and began rubbing at her eyes and nose with her bunched up bit of toilet paper.

I started babbling, which tends to be my style when I can't handle emotions.

"I know this place sucks balls, but please don't cry about it. I mean, unless you're crying about being found in the bathroom. I would be embarrassed enough to cry, too, if I were a girl. This is pretty pathetic, you know."

She groaned again, and blew her nose hard. She frowned at me.

"What are you doing in here?" she said, her voice slightly scratchy. "This is the girl's bathroom. What if you get caught in here?"

I snorted. "Trust me, getting caught in here is nothing. I've done worse. Getting caught in here would be like getting a speeding ticket instead of being tried for murder."

"Murder?"

"Was that a bad example?"

"Yes. No." She covered her face with her hand while she struggled with herself. "I don't know."

"Okay . . . well, sorry. I'm slowly realizing that I'm being an asshole right now," I said. And I did, I really did begin to realize that I was being a douche bag, but I didn't know how to help her. I didn't know that this was what I was going to find when I followed her. I had been a new kid enough times that days like her day today didn't bother me anymore. I tried to remember what my first time being a new kid was like and failed. It was a long time ago. That shit sucked, and my brain did an excellent job of blocking it out.

"I think we should get out of here, Girl," I said, continuing to use my brilliant nickname for her. Calling her Bella, I knew, would feel weird on my tongue, as if I were a first name basis with the Pope. It just wasn't going to happen.

"You do?" she asked skeptically, her eyes watering again as she looked up at me.

"Yes," I said resolutely.

"My eyes and nose are all splotchy, though," she reasoned. "Everyone I see will know I was crying."

"They don't matter. And we'll wait until you're all better before we leave."

She stared at me critically. "Where will we go?"

"Mexico. Don't listen to what they say about the water, it really is nice at this time of year."

"You . . . are so weird."

I shrugged. "I know. We'll go to the cafeteria."

"The cafeteria? No. No way."

"Why not?"

"I kind of came in here to avoid the cafeteria."

"I noticed."

Bella let her feet drop to the ground. She stood up, and I had to press against the stall so she could pass by and leave the cramped space we were in.

"So if you noticed, then why would you make me go there?"

She walked over to the trash can and threw her toilet paper in there, pretty aggressively, actually.

"Because we'd go in late; everyone would notice you were entering with me," I said truthfully.

"And you want me to be seen with you?" She quirked an eyebrow, a little ghost of smile hanging around her mouth again.

"Well, earlier I didn't. Now—I don't care so much."

"You didn't? Why not?"

"Because," I said, and then stopped so that I could nod mournfully, "I knew it would be dangerous for you."

"Dangerous," she repeated dryly, but her splotchy eyes were amused.

"Yes, don't mock me." I walked over to her and grabbed her backpack from her hands. Not anticipating what I was doing, it was easy to take it from her grip and swing it over my shoulder, partly on top of the backpack I already had on. I began walking out of the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" I heard her ask from behind me. I didn't respond until I was standing outside the bathroom door and she had followed.

"This is going to be dangerous for you," I repeated, and started walking down the hall towards the cafeteria.

"Yes, you already said that. You make no sense, though." She had to walk a little fast to catch up, but she began following me again.

"Let me clarify, then," I said matter-of-factly. "I don't really like anyone here. They don't like me. It's all good. I fuck up all the time and I'll admit I'm pretty badass."

"Badass?" she questioned with a little snort.

"Totally."

She started laughing, like, hard. Hard enough to have to stop walking and collapse in on herself a little bit.

I watched her, waiting for it to end.

"Are you done?" I asked with faux impatience.

After a moment, while still breathlessly laughing, she nodded and inhaled deeply. "Yes, I think I'm done, and I'm sorry I interrupted. You were saying you were . . . badass?"

She started chuckling again, but I gave her a hard stare, and she was able to hold it back. Except for her grin. Her grin stayed, and I decided that that was a really good thing.

"Yes, I am a badass." I waited for a second to see if she could handle it when I used that word. When she didn't erupt into laughter again, I finally finished explaining. "No one thinks I'm cool though. They all think I'm a pain in the ass. I sit at the reject's table at lunch. I'm pretty sure it'd be dangerous for you to be seen with me, because it'd ruin your reputation."

I noticed we were walking a little slower than before, when I was walking faster so we'd get to the cafeteria with enough time to eat something. But our pace was in sync now, arms almost close enough to bang into one another.

"Reputation?" she asked, genuinely confused. "I don't have a reputation."

I glanced over at the curtain of hair that was sliding forward little by little, covering the right side of her face.

"Yes, you do," I informed her. "No one knows anything about you yet. You could be anything to them, and that in itself is a reputation. One that would be kinda ruined if you're seen walking into the cafeteria with me."

We were quiet, then, after I said that. We made our way in a silence that was comfortable and contemplative as we turned the final corner to get to the cafeteria. The double doors were only a yard away when Girl stopped walking. Taking the prompt, I stopped walking also, and waited for her to speak.

"You're still weird," she said plainly, with a smile. I grinned in agreement. "But I'm pretty sure you're not going to ruin my reputation if we walk in there together."

"If you say so. Just don't make it a regular occurrence," I warned.

I stepped ahead and opened the door for her. She turned back to watch me come through.

"Now," she began, "where do the rejects sit?"

I raised an eyebrow. "You want to sit with the rejects?"

"Why not?" She shrugged.

My eyes flickered over the entire cafeteria, taking in the curious stares that didn't linger with interest, and the ones that did.

"Why not? Because of your reputation, remember? High school's hard enough when you're new. I'm just trying to make it easy on you," I said, noticing Mike Newton watch us from his table.

She sighed, and then ignored me. "Give me that," she said suddenly, and then grabbed—no, ripped—her backpack right off my shoulder.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, gaining a few more stares. "Play nice, Girl. I'm feeling fragile today. If you recall, I spent yesterday in the slammer."

She shook her head with a smirk. "Yeah, for all of fifteen minutes." She took a confident step forward. "Where's your table?" she asked again.

I shook my head myself, wondering how the hell new girl Bella could go from crying in the bathroom to bossing me around.

Scanning the tables, I found an empty one where Jasper and Rosalie should have been sitting, but clearly were not.

"Over there," I said. I came up from behind her shoulder, really close, allowing my right arm to hook around her shoulders to point so that she wouldn't mistake where, and whom, she would be sitting with.

"Got it," she said with a nod. "Let's go put our stuff down first."

"Okay," I agreed easily, following her.

I checked over my shoulder one last time, the smug feeling really strong again. Mike Newton was still staring, not even caring that I knew that he was watching.

Girl's reputation was going to go down the tank, and her dad would probably invent new ways to hunt me down for it, but I just couldn't find it in me to care.


	6. Chapter 6

**Conjugate Pairs**

**Chapter 6  
**

I should have known that it wasn't going to last. It wasn't a given that she would be able to hang out with me all the time. She was new, pretty, and really fucking annoyingly nice to every single soul that attempted to talk to her. No one would leave her alone.

I really wished she wouldn't be so nice.

Several days went by that consisted of me doing my usual thing: slinking along the hallways and just trying to get through the day without getting another detention. Although, it was hard not to get sucked into the gossip that circulated. Three months in this town, and I was discovering that even if you didn't like talking to people, they certainly liked talking to you.

o o o o o o o

Jessica Stanley fidgeted with her hair while she spoke. Whether she was retying it up into a ponytail, or brushing it across her face differently, she just wouldn't leave it alone. She was currently combing through it with her fingers for the eightieth time, before pushing it back up into another ponytail.

"So, she's nice." Jessica stated.

"Yep," I said, bored. "She's nice."

"But, she's, like, really pale."

I rolled my eyes. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Jessica's hands flopped down from her hair as she rolled her eyes in return. "I heard she's from Arizona."

She stopped talking, and I waited for her to continue.

"Edward."

"What?"

"I heard she's from Arizona."

"Yeah, I heard you."

She circled her eyes around in her air-filled head again, and nudged my shoulder. "You're supposed to confirm the fact."

"Am I? I don't speak your language, Jessica. How about you try talking like a normal person."

She scowled. "Whatever, Edward. All I'm saying is that she's really pale and she's from Arizona. It just doesn't make sense."

_Touchy, touchy,_ I thought. The sad thing was, and I mean the really sad, really pathetic thing, was that Jessica Stanley was sort of an acquaintance, even if she was slowly making herself go bald.

"Chill your balls," I soothed, watching her hands fly back up to her ponytail. "No one cares if she's pale and from Arizona. Maybe she takes care of her skin," I added mockingly.

But she wasn't exactly listening to me, because the next words out of her mouth were very off topic, in my opinion, and very indignant.

"Chill my balls, Edward?" She stood up from the picnic bench and began zippering her notebooks away. "Chill my balls? I don't have any balls."

She began walking away, shaking her head while trying to smirk all flirtingly at me.

"Sure you do!" I called after her. The bell decided to ring just then, but I decided not to go to class yet. I watched Jessica disappear inside the building, thinking about how she wanted my ass, how I really wanted to get closer to Bella's ass, and how Mike Newton, the bastard with a boner for Bella, was the one who got to be close to her.

o o o o o o o

I was still alone at lunch. The table was completely empty. I was the only person at it for the second day in a row, and it sucked, more than I would like to admit.

Eating wasn't too high on my list of priorities while in the cafeteria, anyway. I tended to scarf down whatever it was I chose for that day pretty quickly. Of course, this meant that I had plenty of time to people watch. It wasn't exactly enjoyable, though.

Bella was sitting with_ them_ now. The moderately happy people with nice lives and golden retrievers. It was really nice. She belonged here. To me, she fit in with them pretty perfectly. She would walk in with Newton and they would sit side by side at their table. Jessica, Lauren, and Tyler would fill in a few minutes later, followed by Angela Weber and Ben Cheney, and then it seemed to me that they would have a wonderful old time. Laughter would ring out, and they'd try their hardest to drown the cafeteria in their lame ass teenage sexual tension. Mike, especially, would try to engage Bella in conversation.

And she was nice, so she did as I expected—she would smile and laugh and respond.

Like a voyeur, I would sit and watch the whole time, not caring that I wasn't trying to pretend that I could think about things other than the new girl, just like everyone else who wasn't talking to her.

Little suspicions would enter my mind. Did she really like those idiots? Was she just faking it when she acted like a friend before? In the supermarket? At lunch two days ago?

What happened to the girl that was crying in the bathroom, for god knows what reason? She wasn't sitting at that lunch table, not with Mike Newton.

I didn't know her too well myself, but that was what my Jedi-like instincts were telling me: She, Girl, Swan Spawn, Bella, was _not_ like them.

o o o o o o o

This was happening. Kill me with a spoon, this was happening.

"So, do you need help finding your next class?" asked Mike, Mike Boner Newton, as he stared down at the brown-haired girl who let him walk beside her.

Girl giggled sort of nervously. "Don't we have gym together next?"

The side of Boner's face that I could see brightened. "Oh yeah! We do."

"Yup, we do," Girl echoed. She put a little more space between them to smile up at him quickly.

"Do you still need help, then? Or do you think you could lead the way now?"

Boner was grinning down at her, his wit on full display, and I wasn't impressed. I snorted, rather loudly, actually, as I tried to make my way around them.

And if it weren't for all the other slow-moving, jaded, student zombies surrounding me, I might have been able to break free. But as all of my zombie peers around me were currently brainless, and acting as if they didn't know how to lift their feet, I only made it to Mike's side before I was forced to slow down and wait for another break in the flow of human traffic to make my escape.

Boner's glare at my sudden intrusion of his precious personal space had me rolling my eyes.

"What's up, Edward?" he asked.

I looked across him at Girl instead, as I answered. "Nothing."

She immediately looked away and hid behind her hair curtains.

I saw Boner open his mouth to bid me farewell, most likely, but before he could have the chance, I decided to expand upon my previous response, in hopes of an encore appearance from Girl's eyes.

"Just nothing," I repeated, "except for holding back my gag reflex while you pretend to be clever. Sorry, Bella."

At the mild rage and shock in Mike's eyes, I shrugged. At the ensuing flash of eyes and suppressed smile from Girl, I grinned. And then the tide of zombies ebbed, and I was able to break away.

That look of amusement on her face was enough to buoy me through my last class of the day. It was easy to smile and think about how great of an idea it was to piss off the people Girl associated with and expose them as the losers they really were. She was thankful for it, I knew. She probably wouldn't have looked at me as she did if she wasn't. The whole mini-ordeal confirmed my Jedi instincts, and I decided, as I stared off into space during last period, that I would do what I could to break Girl free of the terrible little social circle she found herself in. She had already begun the deterioration of her shiny new reputation; it shouldn't be too hard to crumble it completely.

o o o o o o o

The sound of shoes scraping against gritty pavement alerted me to the arrival of someone's presence. I was resting my forehead on my knees as I sat on the curb of the drop-off circle while I waited for Esme or Carlisle to remember that they had a responsibility to pick up from school. I had no intentions of lifting my head to watch the passerby, fully committed to wallowing in the misery of being without a car. Even when the scraping footsteps stopped just to the left of me, my head remained planted on my knees.

I told myself I was probably still dealing with some of the day-after-hangover blues.

A throat cleared weakly, and some more light scuffling alerted me to the fact that was someone was daring to get closer to my spot on the curb.

"Hey," a voice said, very raspy. I couldn't place the voice to a face, and apparently the person realized they were indistinguishable, because they tried again. "Hey," was repeated, much more clearly but still unidentifiable, and I had to resign myself to the fact that some idiot wanted to talk. To me.

I rolled my eyes even though they were pressed into my legs and lifted my head, wishing I could just soak in the roughness of my jeans in peace. But upon lifting said head, I was met with a very welcome sight.

"Oh, hello," I drawled with a lazy smile. "What brings you here, Girl?"

She shifted uncomfortably and brought her knees closer into her chest, throwing her baggy sweatshirt-clad arms around her shins. But for all the protective body language she exhibited, Bella shook her head, unabashedly forcing her hair backwards so that I could more easily see her face.

She smiled timidly. "Where is 'here,' exactly? School?"

"No."

That brilliant response received a very blank look. I tried again.

"Here is my curb, where I was just resting my head in peace."

Girl still looked confused, although I had to wonder what about the curb being mine was so difficult to understand.

"Okay. Well, sorry to disturb your peace, but—"

"Oh, it's no problem. You are most definitely not a disruption."

She smiled a bit shyly again at the interruption, and then went on as if I hadn't complimented her. "I was wondering, um, if… I was wondering if you would show me where the post office is."

It was officially my turn to bestow a blank look. "The post office," I said dumbly, and then recovered somewhat. "I don't know if you've been broken in enough to be taken to the post office yet."

She giggled lightly, but probably still confusedly, as she pulled away one arm to physically tuck a cascading piece of hair behind an ear. "Broken in? Am I a domestic pet?"

I shook my head and laughed at her. "No," I assured her. "You are not a pet. I meant that I don't know if you're cool enough yet to go there," I said loftily.

"Cool enough?" she said incredulously. "Well, what do I have to do to be cool enough?"

Girl's grin got wider while she spoke, but found that she had trouble maintaining it as she stared me down after she posed her question; she had to look away before she turned back with a reduced version.

_You have to hang out with me more_, I wanted to say. Then she would most definitely be "cool enough" to go to the post office, and the pharmacy, the public library, and the movie theater in Port Angeles. She would even be cool enough to eat in a really cool restaurant, by my side, before going to this movie theater.

But of course, for once, I didn't say the first thing on my mind. Instead I said, "I don't know. I think the damage has been done."

"What damage?"

"I don't know if you'll ever be cool enough now, Girl."

"Hey, Drunk Kid," she said, frowning and pretending to be offended, "what damage?"

I raised my hands up in defense. "Uh, isn't it obvious?"

She pouted. Quite adorably, really, because I was beginning to think she was actually taking me seriously. "No."

"_Well_," I said, sounding doubtful, "if you don't know, I don't know if it's wise to tell you."

She huffed, just once, eyes narrowed, and then an arm whipped out and smacked me.

_Smacked_ me.

Lightly, of course, but it was still a shock, and I laughed. Pretty loudly.

"Ow! Hey! What was that for?"

"Are you going to tell me why I'm damaged?" There was a new edge to her voice, one that I liked.

Her arm raised up in threat again, and I ducked. "Ah! Hey! Yeah, I'll tell you. Geez, Girl, take it easy."

"I'm waiting," she threatened, the back of her hand still hovering.

"Put your pimp hand down."

She struggled to hold back a laugh. "What?"

"Put your pimp hand down first, and then I'll talk. It's not easy opening up when you're afraid of being bitch slapped."

Her arm lowered, and my gaze was drawn to the lip she bit to hold back her laugh. "Okay," she said diplomatically. "I have lowered my pimp hand. Tell me."

I eyed her warily for a second, and then spoke. "His name is Mike Newton."

"What?" she asked, and her posture dissolved completely in her confusion. Her arms slacked down to her sides and her legs flopped to the side, butterfly style. "What does that mean?"

"It means Mike Newton is not fucking cool," I informed her. "And by hanging around him, you're losing your cool factor."

"Darn," she muttered, looking worriedly at the pavement underneath her.

"I'm sorry," I told her honestly. "I really am.

"What's at the post office?" I asked, using one of my own knees to nudge one of hers.

Girl's head slowly looked up at me, and she shrugged. "Some pictures I told my mom I would send her way."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Well, then that changes everything."

"It does?" she asked skeptically.

"Moms are the coolest," I said, thinking of Esme. "And doing something for a mom automatically overrides any lack of cool you possess. It even puts you back in the black with your cool points."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really."

A car pulled up in front of the curb, almost silently, in my opinion, seeing as I was so absorbed with trying to turn Bella away from the Dark Side.

Bella was eyeing the car, but I was still more preoccupied with her. "I can take you there this weekend if you'd like."

Her gaze darted over to me.

"If that's not soon enough, we can work something out."

"No," she said, shaking her head slightly. "No, this weekend works, thank you."

I beamed at her, just a little. "No problem."

The passenger side window of the car rolled down, and the driver poked her head out… and was what finally caught my full attention.

"Edward? Edward!" Esme's voice began calling. "Sorry I'm late!"

I stood up quickly and shoved my pants and shirt into place. I looked down at Bella and watched as she stood also. "I'll see you tomorrow," I said by way of goodbye.

"See ya," she said softly, her eyes drawn to Esme in the car. But it was with one last smile at me that she began walking away.

I hopped over to Esme's car and slid in, my eyes still trained on Bella walking towards the parking lot, silently wondering if being picked up by Esme made me look cool in front of her. Even if I had just expounded on the coolness of mothers, I wasn't sure if being picked up by one like a kindergartner in front of the school was the way to impress Bella, even though Esme drove a nice car.

"Sorry I'm late, Edward," Esme repeated.

"Hmm?" I looked at her welcoming smile and brushed off her apology. "Oh, no problem."

Bella walked over to a rusty red car and slammed the door after herself. I could hear the roar of her engine from the interior of Esme's Audi. How did Girl get that car?

"Edward."

"Huh?"

"Your seatbelt, Edward."

I immediately fumbled for the buckle. "Oh, sorry."

I heard Esme chuckle slightly, and she finally pulled away from the drop-off and pickup circle. I glanced back one last time at the diminishing sight of Bella's truck, already formulating a plan to break out of the house and take Bella to town, without getting caught.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN**: Maybe you should let me know if anyone is still reading this at this point. That would be helpful. Also, expect a SURPRISE coming very soon.

MarchHare5 = Magic + Eyeballs... IF YOU DO NOT READ her story called THE PROXY TRIPTYCH, you are effing missing out. Just sayin'.

* * *

**Conjugate Pairs**

**Chapter 7**

I had always considered weekdays to be quiet days. Edward was at school. Esme would either be working on her latest housing project or doing something around the house. My days off tended to be weekdays. The quiet in the house was a blanket I would wrap around myself and sleep in… literally sleep in. Naps on the couch in my office were typical; even when Esme or Edward would return home from their day, the house would still seem peaceful. But if the loud clapping sounds of Esme's shoes on the hardwood floors were any indication, to an outsider it might not seem like my days off were filled with the solitude I just described.

"Carlisle!" Esme called out. I waited, with one arm draped over my eyes on my blessed couch, counting down the seconds until nap time would officially be over.

"Carlisle!" Her voice was excited. The sounds of her shoes thudding on the stairs changed to the pat they made on the hallway carpet. The door creaking was the last sound that registered Esme's arrival before she fully entered and saw me sprawled out on the couch.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Esme began, not actually sounding apologetic, as she closed the door behind her, "but Carlisle, I have something _amazing_ to tell you."

I slowly lifted my arm away from my face and came to a sitting position. I took in her flushed face and happy eyes. "Did you get picked to work on that antique home in town?" I asked.

She shook her head quickly, vigorously. And despite the negative gesture, she smiled widely. "Nope! Even better!"

Confused, I said, "Well tell me then, what's better than that?"

Esme darted to my office door and stuck her head out.

"What are—?"

"Sorry," she interrupted as she stepped back in, making sure the door was securely shut this time. "I just had to double check."

"Double check for what?"

"Edward," she said simply. She pulled her shirt down and took a deep breath before walking over and sitting beside me on the couch. She snuggled down onto it, leaning back against an arm so that she was facing me, and then announced, "Edward has a crush on a girl."

I waited for further explanation, more detail on what made this truly amazing. When none was forthcoming, I said, "Well, that's nice."

As if I hadn't said anything, Esme began gushing. "Oh, you should have seen the way he was looking at her! He couldn't lean away, Carlisle! I had no idea he would be like that, you know? He's always acting tough, doing the wrong thing; who would have known that one girl would make him so attentive! It's amazing. And do you want to know the best part?"

I watched her ramble with a slow, amused smile on my face. "What?" I encouraged. "What's the best part?"

"I wanted to laugh so hard, Carlisle. So hard. But I held it in. You're not going to like it."

My smile grew bigger. "That's ridiculous. What is it?"

She sighed dreamily, thinking back on the crush she just witnessed. "Okay, just remember that the Edward I saw earlier is so different from the one we're used to. He was relaxed. He smiled and laughed easily. He was _happy_."

"Okay," I chuckled. "What's the best part then?"

"The girl he's crushing on?" Esme asked open-endedly. She raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah?"

"Bella Swan."

I didn't know a Bella Swan. Esme was waiting for a bomb to drop at the sound of her name, but I didn't know who she was. So I asked.

"Carlisle," Esme began cautiously. "You know Bella Swan. You met her just the other day."

"The other day?"

"Yes," she answered, still wary of me as she explained. "This past weekend in fact."

I thought back to my weekend, trying to remember in what situations I would have met a teenaged girl who was in Edward's grade. Not at the bank….

"Oh my God, Carlisle!" my wife shouted in exasperation. "Swan!" she whisper-shouted. "The girl's last name is Swan! Charlie Swan's daughter! Police Chief Swan!"

"WHAT?"

"Lower your voice!"

But the image of the small girl in a big sweatshirt being corrupted by Edward—the Edward who is very much accustomed to being arrested by the girl's father—was too much.

"He needs to stay away from her! He can't go anywhere near her! Charlie will kill him, I'm sure of it!"

Esme was sitting forward by now, grabbing onto my arm and trying to make me see "reason."

"Edward can't be bad for her, Carlisle. He wouldn't be. You didn't see the way he was leaning all over her. And she must like him, too! She approached him."

"Charlie will kill him, and then come after us for being unfit parents who couldn't keep their unruly son away from his daughter, who just came back home!"

"Carlisle—"

"Are you telling me that the boy who is sent home with Ds on his report card, who vandalizes school property, public property; who is actually _notorious_ around here for his underage drinking, is _good_ for the _daughter of the Chief of Police_?"

"Carlisle, stop it. You are being ridiculous."

I shook my arm away from her grasp and stood up, nervous energy keeping from sitting down, but also from pacing around.

"Am I? Am I being ridiculous?"

"Yes. Edward has a crush on this girl, and I think she likes him too. This is a good thing. This is a _very_ good thing. This is an _amazing_ thing." She stared me down as she spoke, leaning forward as if it would help her will to convince me of her words.

"But Esme—"

"But Esme nothing," she replied firmly. "They're just kids. There's no reason to be so severe over it."

"I think that's the exact reason why we should be severe over it," I countered.

She smiled and leaned back. "I think it's lovely. I think it's amazing and lovely, and we should encourage him in healthy ways."

I looked at her like she was crazy, but she ignored it and continued. "It could be a nice opener for you two to bond with."

"_What?_" I was truly convinced now—she had watched too many chick flicks and seeing whatever hormones were floating between Edward and the Chief's daughter had damaged her brain's perception of the actual event. She was insane.

"Yeah," she said lightly, still not completely in the present with me. Her fingers drifted up and began playing lightly with her bottom lip. "You could give him tips… on how to be a gentleman."

"Bond with Edward over the teenaged daughter of the man who arrests him," I stated unbelievingly.

But Esme only looked me in the eyes and smiled.

o o o o o o o

"Go ahead." I felt her nudge at my back. "Go on."

I still hesitated, wanting to assess Edward's mood before I stepped into the kitchen. Another moment, another nudge, and when I was still hovering behind the door frame, looking warily at the pantry door, Esme laughed quietly.

"He doesn't bite, Carlisle."

"That's because he likes you."

"Stop it," she whispered with another gentle push. "Go."

Reluctantly, my legs moved forward. Now was as good a time as any to begin bonding, Esme had decided upstairs, and I was not to argue with her.

But she didn't really give me any prep time. When I asked for some time to think about what I would say to Edward to begin the bonding, Esme laughed and said I shouldn't think about it or I would come across as a rehearsed old man and wouldn't get anywhere with him.

And it was because I took her words as fact that I was now staring hopelessly at Edward's back sticking out of the pantry, with literally no thoughts in my head and a tickle in the back of my throat.

The sound of the pantry door snapping shut snapped _me_ out of my fog. Edward barely spared me a glance as he moved to the cabinets to bring down a tall glass.

"Whatcha got there?" I asked, hopefully sounding as casual as I could.

Again, I was greeted with the briefest of glances and then ignored as Edward moved to the refrigerator.

"Edward?"

"Goldfish," came the reply. One word, loud and final.

"You really like those Goldfish, don't ya?" I commented. I cast a desperate glance at Esme, who was just beginning to ease into the kitchen with us. She smirked encouragingly and nodded.

"Yup," Edward said, his tone demonstrating his ability to always sound like the master of being bored with me. I turned back to face him to find that he was holding a glass of milk in one hand and his precious Goldfish in the other, scrutinizing me.

When my mind went blank again I smiled, to which Edward only raised his eyes and sat down at the island, turning on the TV with the remote that was left there.

I sighed. Esme, who had begun to "busy" herself in the pantry as a way of disguising her snooping, stepped out quickly to tilt her head encouragingly again at Edward. I frowned at her in response, which meant I then received that expectant look of hers that told me I would be in deep with her later if I didn't follow through.

I took a deep breath—and plunged right in.

"I hear you're adhering to the rules of your grounding well."

I swear to God, there was no emotion on his face. I stared at his profile and just waited for something to happen.

Esme got my attention with a shake of her head and a roll of her eyes before she gave up on being encouraging and went back to the rearranging the pantry, instead focusing solely on eavesdropping on my pathetic attempts to start a conversation with my uncooperative son.

"I'm glad to hear it," I added awkwardly, but I had a feeling my words were becoming an annoying background noise to the episode of _The Office_ that Edward was now fixated on.

There was a crash from somewhere in the pantry. Edward looked over, seeming concerned, but I felt like I was a horse jolted out of the starting gate by a loud, ringing bell. I immediately took advantage in the break of his attention and started a new line of questioning.

"So, I was thinking," I said, and stood in the way of the television, so that he would have no choice but to look at me, "after you've served your sentence, why don't we go out together and do something."

Edward's eyes widened. "Do something?" he repeated.

"Yeah." I shuffled my feet, a bit nervous about the idea that had just popped into my head. "How about we go fishing?"

"Fishing," Edward stated. He took one long gulp of his milk and then asked, "With fishing poles?"

"Yes," I replied, rolling my eyes. "What else would we use?"

Edward raised both of his eyebrows at me. "Do you even own fishing poles?"

I opened my mouth to respond in the affirmative… and then realized that no, I did not own fishing poles.

"We can go out and buy some," I reasoned.

"Do you know how to use them?"

I hesitated again. "I don't think it's that difficult to figure out."

"Uh huh," Edward said disbelievingly. He finished his milk in another big gulp and put the glass in the sink.

"So, what do you think?" I asked him.

He clutched his Goldfish in his fist and began walking towards the staircase. "I think I'm going to serve out the rest of my _punishment_ for today in my room. Bye."

I stared after him until he was gone, and when I looked back I noticed Esme had come out of the pantry and was watching me with a pitying expression.

"Well, so much for not sounding like a rehearsed old man," she sighed. "Next time, dear. Next time. And I'll help you come up with a better idea than fishing."


	8. Chapter 8

**AN**: Here's your surprise! I must really like you guys or something.

* * *

**Conjugate Pairs**

**Chapter 8**

The week is a mind-numbing experience. You gear yourself up for school again on Monday after the weekend, and if you're like me it's even worse, because you're usually still hung-over. Then you push through Tuesday. Wednesday you feel like a zombie and you're worried the week will never end and you'll be stuck in school forever. On Thursday you go in and out of consciousness, tricking yourself into thinking that it's Friday, and when you realize for the third time that it's not, you spiral down into misery. And by Friday—oh, by Friday, you're clawing at the walls to get out of there.

Mind-numbing. Week in and week out of the same experience and your mind is an ice-block. One that you try to thaw on the weekends, preferably with alcohol.

By the Friday after I had met Girl in her father's police car, not only was I clawing at the walls to get out of school and hopefully get drunk later, but I still hadn't thought of a good way to escape my prison to take Bella out to the Post Office—if that's what we were really going to do, I was starting to wonder—and I also had a major headache that I think started on Tuesday, and one of the only things that helped ease it was to wear my glasses.

I never wear glasses to school and didn't even know where I had last put them. But the days-long headache was fucking intense, and when I finally found the damn things my eyes had been hurting from squinting at things for so long, I decided I should wear them, since they helped.

And geez, you'd never think that little squares and glass would cause such a riot, but they did. Everyone noticed them. Everyone had to comment on them. Everyone had to touch them, ask me to take them off, had to put them on their own damn face.

Lauren Mallory was one such person to ask. I sat back and let her do it even though she had never spoken to me before and I was pretty sure I couldn't stand her. The whole time they were perched on her nose I was worrying about getting herpes. You never know with these Forks kids; I saw most of them as whores. And if Lauren had herpes—which was very likely, let's face it—then I was worried. Once you get the herp, it's forever.

It was at this time where I was debating with myself if the contact between the skin above Lauren's ear, the side of her face, and the bridge of her nose and my glasses would be enough contact for me to contract herpes when Jessica Stanley approached.

"Ooh! I heard you were wearing glasses today, Edward. I didn't know you needed them."

She reached out to grab them from Lauren's face, and she grinned as they were taken away.

"Yeah, I do."

"Are you near-sighted or far-sighted, or what?" she asked as she situated them on her face. I wondered if Jessica's tendency to make herself go bald would also rub off onto my glasses and affect me.

"They're reading glasses," I answered, not really wanting to admit that even though I had glasses, I could never for the life of me remember the difference between near- and far-sightedness.

"My mom wears glasses," Lauren added oh so helpfully. "I think she's near-sighted."

"That's nice," I said. I don't think either of the girls realized I didn't care.

"Wow, Edward, this is starting to hurt my eyes."

Jessica was tilting her head back and all around, analyzing the world with my fucked-up vision. She was squinting as she jerked her head around like a fucking crazy person.

"Yeah, you're not supposed to put on someone else's glasses," I informed her. "It ruins your own vision."

"Really?" Lauren asked. Her nose scrunched up like it was a stupid fact.

"Yeah, really," I said, grabbing my glasses back from Jessica's face before it could swivel away from me again. "You should watch out. You could go blind."

"Shut up, Edward," Jessica giggled. "We all know that's not true."

"_Yeah-huh_ it's true," I said, intentionally sounding like a four-year-old on the playground trying to convince his friends that the Boogie Man was real.

"Whatever. You look cute with them on. You should wear them more often."

"Yeah, you should," Lauren added.

"Thanks, girls," I replied sardonically. "I needed to be sure I looked cute in them. Now that I know they match with my face I can wear them more often."

By looking at their faces smiling up at me it was obvious they didn't realize I didn't give a damn about their approval. I looked down at my poor glasses and started to vigorously clean them off on my shirt, even though I was convinced I was just smooshing the germs around and not actually getting rid of them. I would need a sink and some hot water for that.

"Listen, don't you guys need to get to class, or something?" I asked them. The end-of-lunch bell had rung a minute before Lauren had come up to me, and technically, we all should have been heading to class.

"Yeah, I have gym, but I don't want to go," Jessica whined.

"Yeah, I have Spanish and I don't want to go either," Lauren pouted.

"Hmmm," I hummed, raising my eyebrows at them. "Well, girls, I don't know about you, but since I have Pre-Calc right now, I'm actually really excited to get to class. I have an education to worry about, you know." I winked at them. "I'll see you later."

I waited to make sure I had turned the corner away from them before I stopped and shuddered. I looked around to find a door number and figure out what hallway I ended up in, and therefore what boys bathroom was closest so I could go rinse my glasses real quick, when a quiet laugh stopped me.

Girl was standing a few feet ahead of me, leaning against a set of lockers.

"Don't like other people touching your glasses?" she asked.

"No," I said, taking a second to take her in and wonder how she ended up there and what she listened to of my conversation, and why. "Not those girls."

"Oh," she said knowingly. "I see. If I asked you, could I try on your glasses?"

Without responding, I walked the few feet over and held the glasses out to her.

But she didn't take them.

"Go ahead. Ask."

She looked up at me from under her eyelashes and smirked a little, but it suddenly seemed shy. "Can I try on your glasses?"

"Of course, Girl," I said immediately. "I trust you more with them than those people."

She took the glasses from me then and slid them onto her face, pushing the bridge until they rested snugly on her nose. "Yeah, wow. You're sort of blind," she commented, and then took them off.

I happily took them back, seeing as I liked looking at her face without any obstructions, although the way her eyes were enlarged through my frames was amusing. Once they were settled back on my own face, I crossed my arms and leaned against the lockers also, mirroring her position.

"So, where are _you_ supposed to be right now? Or are you skipping?" I asked, hoping that she _was_ skipping, because then I would eagerly skip with her. But she seemed to bristle at my question and stood up straight, no longer leaning against the lockers with me.

"No. I just don't know where I am right now. I forgot how to get to the Language hall."

"Ah," I said. Even though it was the complete opposite direction of where I needed to go, I gestured for her to follow me. "Come on, it's this way. I'll show you."

The second bell rang as we began walking, telling us that all students should be settled into their next class. Girl looked all adorably worried, but I only smiled at her, saying, "Don't worry, you're new. You're allowed to be late. And you can even tell them I distracted you, or led you the wrong way, or whatever."

She arched an eyebrow up at me, but smiled. "Okay. Are _you _worried about being late?"

"Pfft," I laughed. "Not really."

"Oh. Dumb question?"

I shook my head. "Not at all."

I didn't care that we didn't end up talking too much on the way. And I especially didn't care when I showed up nearly ten minutes late to math.

o o o o o o o

Jasper was waiting for me outside of my last period class. When the bell finally rang and I saw him standing there with his back against the wall like it was no big deal, I wanted to smack him.

"Asshole," I greeted him. "Where the fuck have you been? When did you get back?"

"Showed up during lunch," he said calmly.

"Yeah? And you didn't want to come sit down? I've been getting attacked all day."

He smirked. "Yeah, we saw."

"Oh, fuck," I groaned. "Rose has pictures?"

"You betcha!" he grinned cheesily. "You _do_ look really cute with your glasses on. Please wear them more often. They turn me on. In fact, they make me _super _horny."

When he went to playfully rub at his tits I shoved his hand away. "It would have been nice to have Rose's Medusa stare. I wish I knew you guys were around."

"I'm going to tell her you said that."

"Whatever. Where is she?"

We both turned and started walking towards the main exit of the school. I noticed he didn't have his bag or anything, just his car keys, which he began to swing around his pointer finger.

"In the car. Listen, who was that chick you were talking to after lunch?"

"Which one?" I raised my eyebrows at him. I _knew_ he didn't particularly care for two out of the three girls I spoke to after lunch.

"Who do you fucking think?" He raised his eyebrow right back at me. "I know who Thing 1 and Thing 2 are. The one you gave your glasses to—who was she?"

I shrugged. We maneuvered through some hallway doors and finally came to the entrance. "That was Bella."

Jasper held the door open and we stepped outside. The air was chilly and Jasper immediately began reaching for his cigarettes. "And who is Bella?"

"Charlie Swan's daughter."

The asshole started laughing. In fact, he was so surprised and laughing so hard, he had stuck his cigarette in his mouth and forgot to light it. "That's brilliant. Let me know when the Chief discovers a new way to fry your ass. I wanna be there."

"The Chief would never do that to me," I said flippantly. "We're best friends."

Jasper ignored me and we both made our way over to the students' section of the parking lot, to Jasper's beat up Honda Civic, where Rose was lying out in the backseat, staring at the screen of her very big, very expensive Nikon camera. Jasper got in straight away, but I hung back.

"_Hey_!" I shouted, and slammed my palm on the window above her head.

She screamed a little and jolted upright. The glare she gave me was priceless. "Don't fucking do that!" she yelled, and smacked her palm against mine on the glass, as if it would get mine to go away.

"Get some nice shots of me today?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes and waited as I made my way around the car to sit in the passenger's seat. Once I shut the door, I turned around and grinned at her.

"Of course I got some nice shots. I don't take shitty pictures."

"Oh yeah?" I said. "They really nice? Nice enough to take into your bedroom for some private time later?"

Two seconds after those words came out of my mouth, I found the back of my head being gripped and the little hairs being tugged at causing my eyes to water, and another second after _that_, my forehead was almost shoved into the dashboard in front of me.

"You're sick. Don't talk to me," she warned, and then lay back down on the seat.

"I'm sick? You're the voyeur," I pointed out.

"You better shut up or I'm going to show your good friend the Chief these pictures I have of you almost violating an innocent young girl against the lockers today."

Jasper, who was lazily blowing cigarette smoke out the driver's side window, laughed. "Yeah, an innocent young girl who also happens to be his daughter."

"No shit!" Rose exclaimed. "That's who this is?"

"You betcha," Jasper drawled.

"_Well, now_… now I definitely gotta show the Chief."

I looked back and forth between Jasper and Rosalie, the most annoying set of twins I had ever met and the best people I had ever known, and sighed. "Go for it. See if I care."

"Hey," Jasper began, flicking his cigarette butt out the window. "Can you call James and see if he can hook us up tonight?"

"Yeah," I said, unfazed. "Whaddaya want?"

"I don't know. Can you supply the booze and he supply the weed?"

"No," I sighed again. "Can't supply anything. I'm on lockdown for last weekend. In fact, don't fucking drive away because Esme is probably already here to get me."

"Esme here to get you?" Rose said, still chilling in the backseat, the camera taking a rest on her stomach.

"What, you get your car taken away?" Jasper asked.

"Yeah, they took the car back and threatened me with therapy. And I think the good doctor is going to try to bond with me now."

Jasper sucked in a breath.

"Ouch," Rose said.

"When's the punishment over?" Jasper asked, sticking his keys into the ignition.

"Dunno. Soon, maybe? I gotta go, but I'll call you later tonight when I sneak out."

"All right," Jasper nodded. "Still going to call James?"

"Yeah," I replied, opening the door to get out. "Hey, Rose," I said before I was fully out of the car. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she mumbled. "The usual. Just really tired today."

"'Kay, see you guys later."

Jasper waved me off and I slammed his door shut, jogging back over to the roundabout where Esme was likely waiting. Except I didn't make it too far before I was walking past a rather beat up truck with a rather familiar looking person sitting inside.

Slamming my palm on _her_ window wasn't necessary. Instead I stood there grinning—and when she did notice me, I got the same satisfying girl shriek as I did before.

"Hi there!" I said enthusiastically.

Girl took a moment, then rolled down her window. "You scared me."

"Yes, I did." I grinned some more.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked, still looking a tad flustered.

"I think you can. You still wanted to go to the Post Office?"

Girl looked a little shocked. "Uh, yeah. I did."

"Tomorrow good for you?"

"Yeah. Uh, yeah, definitely. Tomorrow's good."

"Good. Tomorrow then," I said. I backed away from her car, still smiling, waiting until she smiled back.

She did. Of course she did, but she's Girl and she's cute like that. Sneaking out of the house multiple times this weekend would be completely worth it. There was no way I _couldn't_ escape Carlisle and Esme's McMansion.

o o o o o o o

"So," Esme began as soon as I had sunk into the leather seat, "what took you so long?"

I shrugged. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" she asked archly. I watched for a moment as she tapped the steering wheel while we waited at the red light. "I thought I saw you talking to someone."

Of course she did, I thought, because she's Esme and she's doing that Mom Thing where she knows every fucking thing I'm doing.

"Yeah." I let out a confessing breath. "I talked to some people I know."

"Anyone _I_ know?"

My head had been plastered against the window, watching houses and street signs roll by, but I was confused by her question. When I turned to look at her, she was smiling to herself.

"Uh…" I trailed off, because I didn't want to answer and have her think it was tight that we knew the same people or some shit, and it only confused me a thousand times more when she didn't stop smiling. "I don't know," I finished.

"Okay," was all she said, and we made the rest of the way home in silence, with Esme's smile still in place.


	9. Chapter 9

**Conjugate Pairs**

**Chapter 9**

CNN still had my attention, until the lights dimmed around me, that is. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Esme still hovering at the light switch, with a look on her face that told me I knew _exactly_ what she was up to.

I slung my arm over the back of the couch and raised a leg onto the cushion. "What're you doing over there?" I asked.

"Oh, just adjusting the lights," she said, dimming them a little more.

"Aren't they dim enough now?"

"It's pretty late," she reasoned, as her fingers finished pushing the dimmer to its lowest possible setting, "it doesn't make sense to have them on so bright anymore."

I grinned as she walked over and settled herself right on my lap. "If you say so."

"I say so," she said, pulling her hands through my hair. When she got to the nape of my neck she tugged my head back and my eyes closed, while she rested her forehead on mine, just briefly, before I felt featherlight kisses on my face.

"I miss you," she whispered.

"Mhmm," I murmured, my arms finding their way around her back.

I settled us deeper into the couch, wanting her weight and her lips on me more. This night seemed like the most calm we had experienced in a while. It was a night where we were both home, relatively rested, and Edward, for once in his short time of living with us, was upstairs in his room adhering to his punishment.

_Bliss_. It really was domestic bliss, especially when your wife started sliding her hands down your chest to your belt buckle, and your arm moved for the remote, turning the volume up on the world crises reported on the news, just in case…

For several heated minutes, Esme and I caught up. Her shirt was removed, my trousers were shoved out of the way. I was working on a side zipper on her skirt, but kept getting too distracted by her hips.

And then I thought I heard a crash upstairs.

"Esme," I panted, pulling away. "Did you hear that?"

"No," she said into my neck. "Hear what?"

"That?" I said, still gasping.

She paused and sat up, though I didn't know if either of us could really hear anything subtle going on upstairs through our loud breaths. Both of our heads turned towards the staircase as we waited. I debated whether or not I should turn down the volume on the TV, but after a decent ten or fifteen seconds, Esme shrugged, smirked, and started pawing at me again.

"If anything," she began, returning to nipping at my neck, "it's proof that he's up there, right?"

I leaned back until her eyes connected with mine. I grinned at her logic. She grinned back.

And we were able to enjoy each other for the first time in a week.

o o o o o o o

There was a really loud noise interrupting my run in the maze. Esme had just turned to look back for me before it started going off again. I whipped around, looking for anything in the thick hedges that made up the walls that could make such a sound. I looked down to the ground, and there was a door. Only I could open it, I knew, so I did. I would just have to leave Esme behind. I had to stop the sound.

Of course, as soon as I dropped down I saw other men down here who had dropped, only they had hurt themselves and were no longer able to move. They were sprawled along a white linoleum floor with little black specks. I could see that they were all watching me, dressed the same as I. Though the lights were very bright, I could see their faces. Some of them I knew from years ago, a couple were doctors I worked with, and they knew something that I didn't know. All of them, it seemed, had been trying to make their way just a few yards in the distance, over to my kitchen, and the countertop where our house phone was now blaring. I strode over, stepping over them. Some looked the other way as I passed, some grabbed at my legs. I started to feel fear.

I answered the phone once I was at the countertop, but it kept ringing. Nothing I did got the portable receiver to pick up. It just kept ringing. I kept pushing at its buttons, shouting into it, and it just kept ringing. I felt self-conscious in front of the people on the floor, feeling like a fool in front of them, but it just kept ringing, and it just got louder, and I couldn't answer it.

o o o o o o o

"Carlisle."

There was a push at my shoulder.

"Carlisle, at least move so I can get it."

Another push.

"_Carlisle,_" she said, more forcefully that time.

One more shove and my body rolled enough for Esme to slip from under me. The room under the maze disappeared, and I saw my wife stand from the couch and walk through the arch into the kitchen, where our phone was no doubt ringing.

I sighed, slumping into the couch more, feeling strange. I felt on the floor for my pants pocket, pulling out my phone. It was 11:23 p.m., exactly. Rather late for Esme and me. Usually, we never even passed out on the couch after sex. One of us was always good about bringing it upstairs once we brought Edward to live with us.

Tonight was different, obviously. I laughed to myself, starting to replay our time on this very couch just a few hours ago, feeling good again. A thought struck me that my married life didn't necessarily have to change with Edward around.

Now relaxed, I listened for Esme's voice in the other room. When I didn't hear anything, there was that strange sensation I had left over from my dream creeping up my neck. Slowly, I sat up, pushing my tired body forward and off the couch. The TV was still on, but muted, and the lights were still dimmed from before, so that I could see well enough to not trip over any of our clothes as I made my way to the kitchen.

In the kitchen, the lights—being on their brightest setting—were in stark contrast to the living room's. Esme was sitting at the island, in the same seat Edward liked so that he could have direct view of the small flat screen, with her head in her one hand and the phone dangling from the other.

"Esme?" I asked, the dream feeling getting stronger.

She let out a huge breath at my calling and turned to look me in the eye. I had never seen quite this look on her face before. It was worry, exhaustion, trepidation, anxiety.

"Go put on some sweatpants or something, anything—quickly. We need to get down to the convenience store."

"Convenience store?"

"Yes," she replied heavily. "I think we should both be there to pick Edward up this time."

o o o o o o o

We dressed quickly and quietly, ignoring our previously shed clothing on the floor. In the car we were silent, confused, and angry.

"What did he do this time?" I asked. It had taken me some time to form the words, having already an idea of what Edward could have done, but still feeling in the dark.

"The officer said that they couldn't actually arrest him yet, but that they suspect him of damaging property. He personally didn't have anything on him this time, and neither did his friend Jasper Whitlock, but they suspect a twenty-something-year-old man was going to sell them drugs and alcohol."

Esme continued to stare out the passenger window, defeated and angry now. I made sure to keep my driving controlled, for her sake.

"He also said Chief Swan was on his way. He's off duty, but apparently they involved his daughter."

"_Shit,_" I said under my breath. "And the other night when we caught him going out to the supermarket he said he was apologizing to her!" I heard my voice rising, but I didn't care. "Was he even at the supermarket? Do you realize how much we owe Charlie Swan? I don't even know where we can even _begin…_" I stopped abruptly and sighed, not knowing what to say.

Esme rubbed my arm during my rant, but she was also silent. At just a few more turns we were at the light just a block away from the convenience store, where we could see flashing lights, an arrested man against a police vehicle, and several people scattered about.

"Where we can even begin," I finished.

We were approached by Officer Parks before we even got out of the vehicle. He began speaking to Esme first, and I scanned the people nearby until I found Edward.

This little display of excitement so late at night had managed to gather a bit of a crowd in this small town, but I still picked out Edward as he was monitored by another cop, sitting on the sidewalk in front of the store. The friend Esme mentioned was several yards away, also sitting under supervision. I wondered if his parents were even going to show… and then I saw the man with the cuffs around his wrists in more detail. He was definitely older, like Esme said; he looked to be in his mid-twenties. He was tall and had the lanky look of someone who did drugs, with the scraggly unwashed hair to match.

I came up beside my wife and put my arms around her shoulders comfortingly as she continued to tell the officer where Edward was supposed to be and why, instead of being allowed out to do whatever he pleased.

I could only look at the man already arrested with the drugs and alcohol on him. And I kept wondering, and I couldn't stop wondering, _how_ Edward knew such a person. And how he met him, and _why_ he would continue to… _do business_ with him when he seemed like such an unsavory character.

Did we _drive_ him to this?

"Carlisle and I agreed to this punishment, yes," Esme finished saying. "We thought we heard a crash from his room earlier, but we just assumed it meant he was—" Esme broke off, her voice suddenly shaky. I gripped her tighter. "We assumed it meant he was in the house, obeying us," she finished.

"All right," Officer Parks soothed, "at this point, especially after some questioning, I believe we have enough evidence to arrest him. We were hoping you might be able to take him home, but the Chief doesn't feel that's appropriate, all things considered."

Esme and I nodded, feeling meek in front of him. Like failures. I looked around again, and this time I noticed the convenience store.

And the broken window. With two other punctures marks where he must have first attempted to smash the window.

And the crowbar on the ground.

And the glass scattered across the pavement.

And the blood on Edward's arms and hands.

"Excuse me," I said.

Officer Parks turned his attention. "Yes, Dr. Cullen?"

"There's blood on Edward," I said directly. "There's blood on my son."

"Yes," he agreed. "But it isn't his, and he has no injuries. He won't tell us who the blood belongs to."

"_Are you kidding me?_" I asked, completely enraged now. "He has _blood_ on him, and he won't tell you whose it is?"

I ignored the stunned faces of the officer and Esme and marched right over to Edward, so consumed that I didn't even notice if any of them followed me or protested my approach.

Edward, who was completely shocked to see me stomping up to him. He even scooted a little bit closer to the police officer guarding him, as if it would protect him.

"Edward," I began… and then stopped, the anger clogging my throat like hair does to a drain. "Edward, you tell them—right now—whose blood you have on you. You tell them, because if someone is hurt and you don't tell the police officers, you are in a world of trouble."

He only lowered his head to knees as I spoke and pulled the hood of the small sweatshirt he was wearing over his head. I tried to step closer, but the officer stopped me.

"Edward," I tried again. "Edward!"

"Sir," the officer watching Edward put his palm up on my chest and gently set me back. "Please, sir, if anyone were seriously injured right now, we would know. We've checked the area, and we're working on—"

"HE DID THIS?" a man shouted from across the lot, breaking off the platitudes the officer was trying to give me.

"DID HE DO THIS TO YOU?"

I whipped around, seeing Charles Swan checking over his daughter frantically. I had been unable to see them before, as they were hidden behind a police car in front of our vehicle, but I could see them now.

Bella Swan had clearly been crying. In fact, her sobs were still occasionally jumping out of her chest. She had on a baggy plaid shirt and was trying to pull down the sleeves to cover them from her father. Yet Charlie was a lot stronger, and much angrier, and forced her sleeves back.

I gasped, moving towards her instantly. There was blood on her hand and on her arms. I couldn't see how big the wound was, but it was a bleeder if I ever saw one.

As I approached, I could hear Charlie's daughter pleading with him, and I was shocked.

"Dad," she was saying, "Dad, he didn't do it _to_ me. I slipped on the broken glass and fell into it. It's my fault. I—I shouldn't have got in his way."

"Bullshit, Bella," Charlie replied, making eye contact with me.

"I'm sorry," I heard myself saying, but the anger in Charlie's eyes was too much for me to be able to tell if I actually had the courage to speak to him.

"Make sure she's okay," he said, before striding purposefully over to my adopted son.

"May I?" I began, gesturing towards Bella's arms. She nodded and seemed as if she were about to speak, but Edward's shouting stopped her.

"I DID IT, OKAY?" he yelled. "AND BELLA WAS AN ACCIDENT. I DIDN'T MEAN TO!"

From over my shoulder, I could see Charlie bending over Edward, no doubt whispering menacingly to him. Edward's eyes looked wild, and even bloodshot—from I didn't even want to know what—as he waved his arms about, pointing to Bella Swan, pointing to himself, pointing at the store. I felt myself cringe.

Charlie reached down and dragged Edward up, pausing to smell the air around his face. I closed my eyes and looked back over to my wife, who was clutching at her neck and looking absolutely distraught as Officer Parks held her back.

"FUCK!" Edward hollered.

Charlie was twisting his arms behind his back, holding his hand out to receive cuffs from the other officer.

"Please," I heard Bella whisper, drawing my attention away from the scene. "I'm okay. It was an accident."

She looked over at Edward struggling and began crying some more. I sighed, lifting her arms into the light so I could see better, and turned to ask an officer nearby if he had a first aid kit. But before I could, Edward felt the need to shout himself into a deeper hole.

"FUCK. YOU," he screamed. "So FUCKING what! I did it!"

Charlie turned him to walk him towards an open police car, and in doing so turned Edward to face us. He looked right at Bella, his chest heaving, his eyes surprisingly blank, and began shouting some more.

"FUCK them, Bella! FUCK 'EM! I DID IT. It's _MY FAULT_. It's _OKAY_."

His face twisted in discomfort as Charlie forced him to walk. Bella only cried harder.

Charlie put Edward in the car and slammed the door. I looked back at Esme one last time, my chest feeling like a lead weight.

o o o o o o o

The next morning I made the decision to post Edward's bail. Formal charges were being pressed by the convenience store owner, and Esme and I did not want him to miss any school if we could help it. We were tied up in knots, wondering if Charlie or Bella were also going to lay another charge against him. Esme was beside herself, staring into space at the island in the kitchen, in the very same spot she received the phone call the previous night.

I was busy twirling my car keys around my finger. I felt as though we didn't know what to say to each other because we had both failed. We were bad parents. We were messing something up. We didn't know how to fix it or how to talk to each other, not when we couldn't figure out Edward's behavior to begin with.

"I think we're just going to have to send him to therapy," Esme said dejectedly, breaking our silence. "And you should probably get going soon. They called and said the money went through?"

She looked up with blood-shot eyes. I nodded solemnly.

One long breath pushed itself through her lips. "Well you better get going then." She stood up and made her way to the staircase, and before I also moved as if I were dismissed from the room, she stopped.

"Can you talk to him?" she asked suddenly. "Without blowing up, just ask him _what happened_."

I nodded, not feeling particularly gregarious or loquacious, but Esme didn't wait for any response. She was already gone, probably ready to work out her tears on her own, while I moved on to the police station to bring home our son.


End file.
